Ansem says buybacks alone do not drive token valuations; trust premium matters more

Crypto KOL Ansem argued that token buybacks on their own do not necessarily lift valuations, saying the bigger factor is the "trust premium" between a team and its community. In a post on X, he compared Hyperliquid and pump.fun, noting that both regularly use profits for buybacks despite a wide gap in valuation. Ansem said Hyperliquid generates roughly $800 million in annualized revenue and has built strong community trust by focusing on product delivery, rewarding core users based on preset metrics, and avoiding overpromising. He contrasted that with pump.fun, which he said generates about $440 million in annualized revenue, has reached $1 billion in cumulative revenue, and raised another $1 billion through its ICO, yet failed to deliver a promised airdrop and lacks social alignment with its core user base. Ansem also pointed to Bitcoin as an example, saying it has zero revenue but still carries the highest trust premium in history because of its fixed 21 million supply and network reliability. He added that trust, memetics, and attention matter as much as tangible metrics in valuing assets, but are still being heavily underestimated by the market.