The native token of cross-chain protocol LayerZero, ZRO, jumped over 22% after the project announced a token buyback program.

The LayerZero Foundation said in an X thread on Monday, Sept. 22, that it had executed a buyback of 50 million ZRO — or 5% of the token’s total supply — from early investors. ZRO rallied sharply from near $1.82 on Monday to over $2.21 by press time today, Sept. 24.

In the X thread, the LayerZero Foundation noted that a16z crypto had also acquired ZRO tokens in April. As the venture firm announced at the time, it purchased $55 million worth of ZRO with a three-year lock up period. The foundation added that revenue from cross-chain bridge Stargate will continue to fund future buybacks.

LayerZero originally developed the Stargate protocol in 2022, but it transitioned into an independent project. However, last month, LayerZero reacquired the protocol after weeks of debate and controversy.

As The Defiant reported last month, although the Stargate community ended up approving LayerZero Foundation’s takeover bid — returning the cross-chain bridge to its original developers — over half of the support actually came from just two addresses, which had little to no prior voting history in the Stargate DAO.

Following Stargate’s acquisition earlier this year, LayerZero said that for the first six months, half of Stargate’s revenue would be distributed to stakers of veSTG, Stargate’s governance token, while the other half would be used to buyback and burn ZRO tokens. After that, most of the revenue is expected to go toward further ZRO buybacks.

Earlier this month, pumpfun’s native token PUMP saw an extended rally to new highs, driven by the platform’s aggressive token buyback program.