MAGIC (MAGIC)

Buybacks? Dividends? Something else entirely? We've seen a lot of debate over the last months about the optimal value accrual and return mechanisms as teams that launched tokens (and token models) under the old SEC try to figure out how to now align their business success with their token success. The results have been....underwhelming so far to say the least. Most teams have just turned on a buyback with a portion of their revenue and that's that. This model has a couple of problems.... 1) Forced/guaranteed buybacks just mean you're creating more sellers...which is suboptimal. A forced buyback rewards people who are selling, but does little for remaining holders. 2) It ties valuation to cashflow....which is big bad for a bunch of protocols that have hilariously high valuations and near zero rev/cashflow So what's a project to do? Magic Eden is trying a new hybrid model that kinda resembles buybacks mixed with dividends. Basically 15% of company rev is going back into the token ecosystem via 50% buybacks, 50% USDC rewards (dividends) to ME stakers based on length/amount/etc. I don't 100% know how this type of model will be treated when it comes to regulators, but I do think it's cool to see projects willing to push the boundaries in 2026 to figure out value return mechanisms that don't just further engineer sell pressure while leaving "believers" with the bag. Projects going down this route still need to figure out where/how to bake in a speculative premium (unless they have very large cash flows), but it's a start. I think best case scenario here is they are able to demonstrate meaningfully lower sell pressure than what the models would show for a pure buyback with this revenue, and that leads to more teams trying out fresh value return mechanisms

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