SYRUP surged as much as 16% on the 24-hour chart after Maple Finance, an on-chain asset management company that oversees more than $3 billion, announced that it used 25% of its November profits to buy back 2 million shares of its assets.
According to CoinGecko, SYRUP reached $0.28 after Maple announced that it had bought back 2 million tokens and removed them from the circulating supply, pushing its market cap to over $318 million. Since then, the asset has returned to just above $0.26 as of this writing. The token has gained about 19% this year, but has had a rough last month, dropping about 32% in 30 days.
This is a 24-hour price chart of SYRUP. Source: CoinGecko
“Maple just used 25% of its November revenue to buy back 2 million syrups,” the company wrote in a post to X this morning. “It reduces supply to the market and creates more value for long-term holders. If we continue to buy back at this pace, more than 2% of the total $SYRUP will be pulled out of circulation each year.”
The move reflects a broader trend of increasing buybacks across cryptocurrencies, as more projects choose to use their proceeds in ways that benefit token holders, rather than reinvesting them all in growth and marketing.
A recent report from investment firm Keylock found that token buybacks have become a key feature of tokenomics, with a more than five-fold jump from 2024 onwards. “Token buybacks are rapidly becoming a central vehicle in how protocols think about distributing value,” the report says. “Still, its rise has sparked debates about timing and tradeoffs, especially given that most crypto protocols are still in their growth stages.”
New buyback policy
Maple’s token purchase using November proceeds marks the first month of the new buyback policy after token holders passed a proposal aimed at “long-term sustainability.”
As previously reported by The Defiant, in October SYRUP stakers voted to eliminate staking rewards and direct a portion of protocol revenue to the Syrup Strategic Fund, a portion of which will be used for periodic SYRUP buybacks.
DefiLlama said the changes come as Maple Finance has recorded significant growth this year, with Total Value Locked (TVL) rising from $513 million at the beginning of the year to around $2.8 billion today.
The stock buyback also comes at a time when Maple is facing legal pressure overseas. Earlier this month, a Cayman Islands court issued an injunction blocking the launch of a new Bitcoin yield product, Syrup BTC, after partner Core accused Maple of violating an exclusivity agreement.
