Space Review | Focusing on the second half of the DeFi track, how does JST buyback and burn practice long-termism?

DeFi was once the core narrative of the crypto market, but as high APYs and liquidity dividends recede, the market is gradually returning to rationality. Now, users are no longer simply buying into stories—they’re starting to think about more fundamental questions: in today’s environment, why continue using DeFi? What kind of mechanism can truly carry the industry through its cycles?

Against this backdrop, this episode of Space conducts an in-depth discussion around these questions. Focusing on the shift in how DeFi narratives are framed and what the value anchors are, as well as the JST buyback-and-burn mechanism in the TRON ecosystem, the guests break down—step by step—the logic of DeFi’s evolution from “high APY–driven” to “real yield–driven,” and explore what kinds of DeFi projects can survive when market attention is diverted to AI and RWA. The following is a highlight recap of this episode’s conversation.

When the tide goes out, the core opportunity of the new DeFi cycle lies in deeply cultivating “real needs”

Against the backdrop of rapid swings in crypto market narratives, is the DeFi sector still the main line of the next cycle? Will its position be replaced? In response to this question, multiple guests unanimously believe that DeFi still occupies an unshakable position in the crypto market, but its narrative approach and value anchors have undergone fundamental changes.

Peter from the crypto community first dissects the market’s current structure. He believes that the value layers in the market are becoming increasingly clear. The AI track carries the immense imagination brought by technological innovation, Memecoins embody the community’s emotional atmosphere, and RWA contains policy expectations and stories of incremental capital. These three tracks have natural advantages in attracting short-term traffic and speculative funds because they’re “easier to tell stories about.”

However, Peter sharply points out that focusing attention does not equal value being realized. Especially once the market enters a range-bound pullback phase, funds quickly shift from speculation to hedging, seeking tracks that have “verifiable data.” He notes that the essence of DeFi is financial infrastructure, not trend products that rely on narratives or expectations. As long as there is asset and trading demand on-chain, DeFi’s value will naturally amplify as the market recovers—this is the underlying logic for surviving across cycles. Mr. Mi also points out that without DeFi as the most fundamental liquidity pool and financial “Lego,” emerging sectors simply cannot support massive capital inflows. Therefore, even if future waves of sentiment fade, capital ultimately still flows back to DeFi—the core area.

While affirming DeFi’s “cornerstone” status, the guests also point out that its role is changing. Unlike the absolute king image during “DeFi Summer,” after experiencing cycle rotations, DeFi is now consolidating itself into baseline infrastructure like water and electricity. HiSeven believes that if DeFi wants to truly lead value as the main line in the next stage, the market’s evaluation criteria will change: in the past, people valued the wealth effect created by high APY and short-term liquidity incentives. In the next cycle, genuine users, real protocol revenue, and long-term sustainable operating mechanisms will be the core.

HiSeven adds three specific dimensions for screening future projects: the real protocol income and distribution capability; ongoing user retention and repurchase behavior; and sustainable mechanisms that can still operate in a cold market. He asserts that the core opportunity for DeFi in the next phase is no longer about telling more novel stories, but about making those real needs that already exist but haven’t been fully priced grow bigger, deeper, and more solid.

In the second half of DeFi’s new narrative, how does JST use the buyback-and-burn mechanism to break out into its own momentum?

Based on the collective viewpoints of the guests, the direction of DeFi’s next evolution is already clear: the era of rough expansion driven by high leverage and inflated APYs is ending, and a new phase—driven by real needs, anchored by protocol revenue, and rebuilding trust with data transparency—is beginning.

Against this backdrop, the TRON DeFi ecosystem’s JST buyback and burn, funded with real proceeds, exemplifies a substantive leap from “traffic thinking” to “value thinking.”

JST is the governance token of the JUST protocol within the TRON ecosystem. Its buyback-and-burn mechanism is a system implemented through community proposals and tightly linked to protocol revenue. On October 21, 2025, the community proposal was officially approved, deciding that the existing earnings of the JustLend DAO, its future net income, and the portion exceeding 10 million USDD (from the multi-chain ecosystem income) would be fully used for buybacks and burns. At the underlying level, this connects a self-reinforcing loop: “the more revenue → the more buybacks → the more burns → the stronger the deflation.”

Once the mechanism was set, the real test was execution. Looking back at the six months from October 2025 to now, JST has efficiently completed three rounds of large-scale buybacks and burns. The pace is tight, and the level of investment has increased round by round:

First round (late October 2025): about $17.72 million invested, burning approximately 559 million JST, accounting for 5.66% of the total supply.

Second round (January 15, 2026): the buyback-and-burn intensity increased noticeably, with about $21 million invested, burning approximately 525 million JST, accounting for 5.30% of the total supply.

Third round (April 15, 2026): about $21.3 million invested, burning approximately 271 million JST, accounting for 2.74% of the total supply.

In total, across the three rounds, cumulative investment exceeded $60 million, with approximately 1.356 billion JST permanently burned—13.7% of the total token supply. Based on the recent market price of around $0.08 per JST, the total value of the tokens that have been burned already exceeds $100 million.

The most direct effect of continuous buybacks and burns is reflected in JST’s token price trend. Before the buyback-and-burn plan started, the JST price hovered around $0.032. By December 2025, it surged to about $0.045, a stage gain of roughly 40%. As of the end of March 2026, the six-month cumulative increase was close to 100%; it continued to rise afterward, with the peak breaking above $0.085—an increase of more than 160% compared with before the mechanism launched. Even in a market environment where Bitcoin’s decline at one point exceeded 37% during the same period, JST still carved out an independent trend.

The real significance of this mechanism lies in the way it deeply binds token value to the protocol’s fundamentals. As Web3 creator Caicai Zi said, all three rounds of JST burns used only the protocol’s real net income, with no external subsidies. This indicates that the project has formed a positive flywheel: “genuine demand deposits income; protocol revenue feeds token holders,” establishing a long-term, verifiable value anchor for the entire sector.

Ultimately, DeFi is bidding farewell to the phase of reckless growth and returning to the essence of finance. Whether it’s deepening focus on real needs, or implementing deflationary mechanisms like JST supported by actual protocol revenue, both reflect a substantive shift in market focus toward “sustainability.” In future cycles, leaving aside inflated expectations, only those DeFi projects that can steadily capture value, establish healthy revenue distribution mechanisms, and speak with transparent data will truly have a solid base for long-term development.