Trump’s World Liberty votes for token buybacks and burns

Trump-backed crypto project World Liberty Financial passed a governance proposal to reduce the supply by buybacks and burns with the aim of creating and boosting the value of its native crypto token (WLFI) following its underwhelming price performance since its launch.

The vote passed with a 99.8% majority, while only 0.06% of the community voted against the proposal. According to data from World Liberty Financial, it will serve as the foundation of the platform’s token buyback strategy.

The strategy seeks to use 100% of the project’s treasury’s liquidity fees for WLFI token buybacks. Purchased tokens are then sent to a burn address, permanently reducing supply. 

It also seeks to create more value for long-term WLFI tokenholders, while exploring additional protocol revenue sources for token buybacks. The governance proposal says, “This program removes tokens from circulation held by participants not committed to WLFI’s long-term growth and direction, effectively increasing relative weight for committed long-term holders.” 

WLFI will get liquidity positions on major chains

After the proposal, WLFI will get its liquidity positions on Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Solana. These positions will be used to buy back WLFI tokens on the open market. Tokens bought are sent to a “burn” address so they can never be used again.

However, the plan still doesn’t include estimates on the fees generated by the platform, which makes it hard to estimate how the buybacks might affect the market.

A governance vote was held almost three weeks after the official launch of the WLFI token on September 1. The price dropped 40% in the first three days of its launch, costing whales millions of dollars. For instance, influencer Andrew Tate realized a $67,000 loss on his WLFI long position on decentralized exchange Hyperliquid.

Although the WLFI platform burned 47 million tokens on September 3, that didn’t stop the token’s post-launch drop. According to on-chain data, the WLFI token is down over 28% since launch.

This time around, the token is bullish. It has seen a 5.04% rise in the last 24 hours and a 17% rise in the last 7 days. The token is trading at 0.2340, still below its ALT high of 0.3082.

The impact of buybacks and burns across the crypto industry

Buyback projects using treasury or fee revenue to repurchase tokens on the open market have seen a rise in adoption since 2024. Industry trackers and market-data outlets report growing weekly volumes of buybacks and analyses showing a clear signal effect when buybacks are announced.

When hit, not all burns look the same. Meme and utility groups like Shiba Inu have done a lot of high-nominal. However, some burns are accompanied by short-lived rallies. For example, large SHIB burns have coincided with modest intraday price pops. However, because there was a huge supply of SHIB to begin with, many burns have only caused a small drop in the overall supply. 

On the other hand, Binance completed its 32nd quarterly BNB burn in July 2025, removing roughly 1.59 million BNB. This was a continuation of a transparent, formulaic program that has meaningfully trimmed BNB’s circulating supply over time. As reported by Cryptopolitan, the burn torched 2.1 million BNB valued at $1.6 billion. 

Ethereum’s EIP-1559 is the most clear real-world example of structural burning changing token economics. After the upgrade, the protocol permanently gets rid of the “base fee” part of transaction costs. This structural change affected the supply of ETH. It is widely credited with strengthening ETH’s scarcity narrative, even as price remained subject to broader market cycles. 

Price support or short-term rallies are common, especially when programs are large, persistent, and coupled with transparent rules. So, do buybacks and burns work? Mechanically, burns and buybacks reduce circulating supply or remove tokens permanently, which, all else equal, creates scarcity that can support higher prices. 

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