Comparing results for buyback vs. ve-tokenomics.
A small case study comparing two baskets consisting 4 biggest buyback tokens and 3 biggest ve-tokens.
Takeaways:
1. The peformance gap "buyback vs. ve" is much smaller that it was stated in the original post: $67 vs $300 -> $81 vs. $139
2. The highest valuation multiples are concentrated in major assets like
$HYPE and
$UNI. This suggests that market attention and valuation premiums remain heavily concentrated in the largest projects.
Ongoing observations:
1. Buybacks outperformed on price returns.
$100 invested in each of the four buyback tokens one year ago would be worth $130 on average today (equal-weighted across the group).
2. ve-tokenomics underperformed. The same $100 investment across each of the three ve-tokens would be worth just $72 on average.
3. But price performance doesn't tell the whole story. Both groups generate economic value for token holders beyond price appreciation.
4. To account for this:
- Buybacks: we account the reduction in total supply as a kind of an income, since each remaining token represents a larger share of the supply.
- ve-tokenomics: we account for revenue claimable by token holders.
5.
$HYPE was the strongest price performer. Excluding
$HYPE, the buyback group's average ending value drops from $130 to $115.
6. Accounting for accumulated revenue in the position:
Buybacks: $130 → $139
ve-tokenomics: $72 → $81
7.
$HYPE and
$UNI have relatively small supply reductions: just 1.6% and 1.3%, respectively. We calculate these figures against maximum supply (the FDV basis), since buybacks increase the proportional ownership of all remaining tokens.
8.
$PUMP and
$CAKE burned significantly larger portions of their supply, making their buyback-driven value accrual more substantial.
9.
$PUMP and
$CAKE trade at roughly the same P/FCFt multiples as
$CRV and
$PENDLE, around 17x, despite their fundamentally different value accrual mechanisms.
10.
$AERO stands out with a P/FCFt below 10x, making it one of the cheapest assets in this comparison on a token-holder revenue basis.
All the results are presented at the infographic
Source: Valueverse API