A batch of star projects emerging in this cycle all share a common issue—their tokenomics are designed backwards.

The main culprit is that aggressive automatic buyback mechanism. The project team uses prices far above reasonable valuation, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into buybacks and repurchases all at once, directly causing the price curve to become chaotic. Retail investors follow the hype and rush in, only to end up as the final bagholders.

HYPE, ENA, JUP—these top projects in this cycle have all fallen into this trap. Valuations have long been seriously distorted, yet the project teams continue to artificially inflate the market with their treasuries, almost as if they are using their own money to buy the market at the peak. This operation appears to maintain hype on the surface but actually masks weak fundamentals—once the treasury runs out of funds or buybacks stop, the price immediately corrects.

For investors, the biggest risk of projects driven by buybacks is here: while short-term gains are tempting, the risk concentration is extremely high.