What's Driving Token Prices? January 7, 2026

HNT (+12%) - Last week, wireless DePIN project Helium announced it would cease its token buyback program after only two months. In a post on X, the project’s founder noted that despite spending on token buybacks, the market did not respond, and therefore, they decided to reinvest in the project’s growth. To date, Helium has spent over $2.2M on token buybacks, averaging roughly $200K per week. Despite this, poor market conditions and low liquidity have led to volatile price performance. As a DePIN project, HNT’s token model is based on supply and demand, whereby new HNT tokens are emitted to individuals who provide hotspot wireless access, and users pay in HNT tokens (which are burned) to access that wireless connectivity. The result is that as demand for network access grows, so does demand for HNT. As of now, demand generated by Helium’s 1.6M DAUs on the network is outstripping emissions by approximately 60%.
LIT (+14%) - Lighter protocol, the hottest new perpetual futures DEX on the market, began its buyback program on Monday, and has so far purchased approximately 280K tokens worth $792K at today’s price. The project also announced yesterday that it would roll out support for trading equity perpetual futures on a 24/5 schedule. Lighter joins many others offering equity perps, including Coinbase and Robinhood. This all comes on the heels of a rocky token launch for LIT right after the Christmas holiday. Upon launch, the token crashed 30% but has since recovered and is now up 14% on the week.
JUP (+16%) - On Monday, Jupiter, the largest DEX aggregator on Solana, launched its JupUSD stablecoin. The stablecoin, which was launched in conjunction with Ethena, is 90% backed by BlackRock’s BUIDL fund. According to the project, the stablecoin is actually backed by a combination of USDtb (Ethena’s stablecoin backed by BUIDL shares) and USDC. In the future, Jupiter plans to add additional backing assets, including potentially Ethena’s USDe stablecoin. The JupUSD stablecoin will be available to use on Jupiter’s platform, including its exchange, lending protocol, and across any other Solana DeFi apps that choose to support it. As of today, JupUSD has approximately $11.5M in AUM.

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