Renzo Protocol just pulled off their inaugural buyback-and-burn using actual protocol revenue—not some smoke-and-mirrors tokenomics game. Here's what went down: they scooped up 127 million REZ tokens straight from the market. Then came the fire sale—literally. 90% of that haul (114 million tokens) got permanently torched, while the surviving 10% went to ezREZ stakers as a reward.

This isn't your typical deflationary stunt. The buyback's funded by real revenue flowing through the protocol, which separates it from projects that just shuffle supply around without substance. Yet even with this aggressive burn mechanism in play, REZ is still nursing a brutal 97% drawdown from its all-time high.

The gap between sound tokenomics and market sentiment stays wide. Revenue-backed burns might tighten supply over time, but price recovery demands more than just fewer tokens in circulation—it needs renewed demand and ecosystem growth to close that canyon-sized gap.