GM. This is Milk Road, your announcer for today’s fight: in the blue corner – buybacks. In the red corner – innovation & growth...
Here’s what we’ve got for you today:
- ✍️ Twitter fiiight!
- 🎙️ The Milk Road Show: This DeFi Model Could Fix the Energy Crisis (And Power the Next Cycle) w/ Jason Badeaux.
- 🍪 Bitwise CIO laid out crypto’s three 2026 hurdles.
Launching The Energy Network on Solana, Fuse Energy has just secured $70M in Series B funding. Discover the future of energy now.
Prices as of 2:00 PM ET. Trade today with Milk Road Swap.
TWITTER FIIIGHT: TOKEN BUYBACKS 🥊
There’s a fight breaking out on Crypto Twitter…
And it’s all centered around token buybacks – which are often highly celebrated in crypto.
(’Cause if your app is spitting off enough spare cash to go and repurchase its own token - you must be doing something right!)
… but should buybacks be so heavily relied upon? Or are they damaging growth and innovation?
That’s the core of this debate. 👇
Sources: @Only1temmy, @fejau_inc, @richhomiecon (X)
Here’s everything you’ve missed so far, starting with…
1. Why users love buybacks
Holding a crypto app’s token is not like holding a share in a company.
It doesn’t give you any ownership in the company that built the app.
So if the value of the company grows, it’s not necessarily reflected in the token’s price.
Instead, tokens act more like commodities (think: oil and energy).
They power the apps.
E.g. If you want to trade on Hyperliquid, you need to pay fees using HYPE tokens. More users on Hyperliquid = more demand for HYPE = HYPE growing in value.
So what’s a quick way to increase demand for your app’s token, without bringing in new users?
Simple:
Take a chunk of your revenue → use it to buy your own token → create artificial demand → all while reducing your token’s circulating supply (making it more scarce).
And if HYPE is anything to go by, actively reducing a token’s circulating supply works (to varying degrees) in both good & bad market conditions:
Ahhhh, ok? This looks/sounds awesome – where’s the beef?
The issue is, buybacks don’t improve the product or increase its overall use all that effectively.
And it’s not like there aren’t other (better) options out there…
FUSE ENERGY RAISES $70M AT A $5B VALUATION
Is this the most legit energy company to ever enter crypto?
Fuse Energy is a $400M ARR utility powering 200,000+ homes, recently announcing a $70M Series B at a blockbuster $5B valuation.
This comes after the recent beta launch of The Energy Network, a new digital layer engineered to scale our grids and save billions in costs.
And now, it’s just building its momentum:
- Just raised $70M in Series B led by Lowercarbon and Balderton.
- Now valued at $5B.
- Launched beta on Solana.
- Received landmark no-action letter from the SEC last month.
- Planning listings for early 2026.
A new foundation for the grid is coming.
Check out their announcement here and follow Fuse on X for updates.
TWITTER FIIIGHT: TOKEN BUYBACKS (P2) 🥊
Sure, buying back your own token works.
BUT!
There are other levers apps can pull that will not only increase token demand, but also push innovation & growth…
2. Buybacks: Not the only game in town
The other options at hand are…
- Build new products/features: Create new use cases → solve new problems → bring in new users → increase token demand.
- Business development (BD) & marketing: Reach new eyeballs → bring in new users → increase token demand.
- Acquire new products/apps: Find a product that others are using → buy it → bring those users to your ecosystem → increase token demand.
Long term, all of these options push innovation and/or growth more effectively than buybacks… problem is: They aren’t easy, reliable wins.
Meanwhile, buybacks work pretty darn effectively, right out of the gates! But they’re a short term solution, and not nearly as effective as, say, creating a killer new product.
E.g. If Apple were to spend its money buying back its shares, that would create short term demand for the stock (lower risk, lower reward).
But if they spent that same money developing a new hit product – while it might take a minute – it would create longer lasting demand for the stock (higher risk, higher reward).
And that’s what’s really being debated here:
3. So here’s where the argument nets out…
If I had to summarize everything I’ve been reading, the conclusion would go something like this:
“Ok, ok - yeah, the crypto space has probably gone a little crazy with buybacks of late…
And yeah, there’re probably some apps out there that should be putting their spare cash into innovation, marketing, and acquisitions over buybacks…
But it’s not a ‘Yes/No’ question.
Instead of seeing buybacks as the first (and often only) option at hand, we want apps to see token buybacks as the final demand lever in their tool kit.
(The same way only mature companies do stock buybacks - once they’re too big to continue growing exponentially).”
I.e. LESS of this:
Ok, that’s how the fight went down.
Now, we want to know – where do you stand?
Reply to this email with your answer:
- I’m team ‘short term’ (Low risk, low reward. Easy gains, now).
- I’m team ‘long term’ (High risk, high reward. Larger gains, later).
P.S. Want a closer look at buybacks and the effect they have on the market? Check out this report!
BITE-SIZED COOKIES FOR THE ROAD 🍪
Privacy is one of the biggest issues in crypto. Zama is fixing that.*
Newton screwed us: The Bitcoin ETFs shed $243M yesterday, as the crypto rally started to cool (“what goes up, must come down”).
New product, or new trap? Who’s set to win the trillion dollar gamble on the growing smart glasses market?
The road ahead: Matt Hougan (Bitwise CIO) just laid out the three hurdles crypto needs to clear in 2026.
Come work with us! We're hiring for a Head of Product role @ Milk Road!
Wanna buy the dip? Milk Road Swap lets you trade all Ethereum and Solana-based tokens in one clean interface.
*this is sponsored content.
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