Cumulative Burn of 10.96%, Price Surge of 38%: JST Charts a Sustainable Deflationary Path with Protocol's Real Revenue

In response to the sustainability challenges of DeFi value models, JST is providing a clear and powerful answer through a series of genuine buyback and burn actions backed by real capital.

Market data offers the most direct confirmation: Since the first buyback and burn initiative launched on October 21, 2025, JST's price has charted a steady upward trajectory. This momentum strengthened notably after the completion of the second large-scale burn on January 15, 2026. As of January 22, 2026, the JST price reached a high of $0.0458, marking a cumulative increase of 38.2% since the mechanism's inception, with a 7-day gain of 13.55% and a 24-hour trading volume climbing to $43 million. This sustained and significant price performance is a direct response to the fundamental reshaping of JST's underlying value logic, transforming it from a governance token into a scarce asset driven by the protocol's real yield.

Supporting this value transformation are two substantial buyback and burn actions within the JUST ecosystem. The first buyback and burn involved 560 million JST, accounting for 5.66% of the total supply. The second action saw 525 million JST burned, representing 5.3% of the total token supply. To date, the cumulative burn has reached 10.96% of the initial supply, significantly accelerating the deflationary process.

The core driver behind all this is the sophisticated "economic gear" established by JustLend DAO Proposal #37. This mechanism converts profits from core protocols within the JUST ecosystem into a sustained market force for buying back JST, directly linking the token's value to the ecosystem's financial health. This is akin to a publicly traded company systematically using its quarterly profits to repurchase and retire its own shares, directly translating operational results into increased shareholder value. The steady upward trend of JST's price curve is precisely the market's positive recognition of this mechanism's design and the "value generation-feedback" virtuous cycle it represents. It demonstrates that a token economic model based on real revenue, transparent execution, and sustainability is accelerating within the JST ecosystem.

JST Deflation Milestone: From Proposal to the Path of Sustainable Deflation in Practice

The fourth quarter of 2025 was a pivotal period marking a fundamental shift in the value foundation of the JST ecosystem. The core engine of this transformation was JustLend DAO Proposal #37, which passed with overwhelming community support on October 21. This proposal established a groundbreaking value feedback mechanism: continuously using the net income generated by the JustLend DAO protocol and excess revenue from the USDD multi-chain ecosystem to repurchase JST on the open market and permanently burn it. This signifies that JST's value narrative has officially transitioned from a utility token previously focused on governance functions into a new era as a "value token" backed by real cash flow.

Subsequently, JustLend DAO initiated the first round of the buyback and burn program as planned. By utilizing 30% of the accumulated revenue reserves, it successfully and permanently removed 559,890,753 JST from circulation, equivalent to approximately 5.66% of the total supply. The remaining 70% of the reserves were deposited into JustLend DAO's SBM USDT market to generate yield. This "seed capital" and its future returns are scheduled to be used for burns in batches over the next four quarters, demonstrating the project's pursuit of a long-term, sustainable development path.

On January 15, 2026, the JUST ecosystem completed its second large-scale buyback and burn as scheduled. A staggering 525 million JST (worth approximately $21 million) was permanently removed from circulation, accounting for 5.3% of the total supply. The funds for this burn were sourced from two parts: one portion came from the $10.19 million in net income generated by protocol operations in Q4, and the other from $10.34 million in carried-over revenue.

Thus, within less than a quarter, the cumulative burn of JST has surpassed 10.96% of its total supply. This figure is not just a milestone; it clearly outlines the trajectory of its accelerating and deepening deflationary process, sending a clear signal to the market that its scarcity narrative has entered a phase of tangible fulfillment.

At the price level, the market has responded positively to the reshaping of JST's value logic. Since the completion of JST's first burn, its price has entered a steady upward channel. CoinMarketCap data shows that one week after the burn, its price rose by approximately 4.62%; one month later, the gain expanded to 13.04%. The price continued to climb thereafter, reaching a phase high of around $0.0458 on January 22, 2026, representing an increase of over 38.2% since the first burn. This not only reflects the market's deep recognition of its "buyback and burn" mechanism but also indicates that investors are revaluing JST based on its fundamental transformation from a single governance function to a "scarce asset" with cash flow support and a deterministic deflationary expectation.

From establishing the economic model through a governance proposal, to initiating the burn cycle using reserve funds, and then completing the second large-scale practice relying on protocol-generated income, JST accomplished a complete value leap from theory to practice, from initiation to self-reinforcement in Q4 2025, building a credible and solid execution foundation for its long-term scarcity narrative.

Performance-Driven: Real Yield Forges JST's Value Foundation

The fundamental driver behind JST's two large-scale buyback and burn actions in Q4 2025 stems from the solid performance growth and strategic execution of the JustLend DAO protocol itself. The protocol not only possesses the ability to generate immediate revenue but has also established a robust financial system capable of self-sustaining growth and strategic reserves.

Specifically, JustLend DAO's performance in Q4 2025 can be summarized as "a solid core business with breakthroughs in innovation," with its core contribution lying in building a diversified and healthy revenue structure.

On one hand, JustLend DAO, as the core lending market of the ecosystem, has maintained its Total Value Locked (TVL) steadily above $7 billion, consistently ranking among the world's top-tier lending protocols, providing a stable and predictable revenue base.

On the other hand, the protocol has successfully broadened the boundaries of value capture through product innovation. Among these, the design of the sTRX service is particularly ingenious, as it innovatively resolves the inherent conflict between staking and asset liquidity. This service allows users to convert staked TRX into tradable sTRX tokens. While users continue to earn native TRX staking rewards, they can utilize sTRX as a liquid asset to seamlessly participate in diverse financial scenarios such as JustLend DAO's lending market or providing liquidity on SUN.io.

This mechanism fundamentally represents a revolutionary enhancement of user capital efficiency, activating "idle" staked assets into "productive" circulating capital. As of January 22, 2026, the amount of TRX staked has exceeded 9.3 billion, with the staking Annual Percentage Yield (APY) remaining stable at around 6.96%. This not only locks in a massive core asset base for the protocol, building a deep moat, but also generates a continuously growing cash flow for the protocol through associated service fees.

Another key innovation, the "Energy Rental" service, focuses on lowering the barrier to on-chain operations for ordinary users, directly stimulating ecosystem activity through market strategies. In September 2025, this service underwent a crucial strategic fee adjustment, significantly reducing the base service fee from 15% to a more competitive 8%. This "volume-for-price" strategy quickly ignited market demand, making more small-to-medium, high-frequency on-chain interactions economically viable. The fee optimization directly led to a significant increase in transaction frequency and overall rental volume, ultimately contributing considerable incremental revenue to the protocol based on a larger total business volume.

These two innovations work together to form a reinforcing loop: sTRX attracts and solidifies core assets, boosting the ecosystem's total value, while Energy Rental reduces interaction costs, stimulating ecosystem activity and transaction volume. They complement each other, not only opening new revenue streams but also fundamentally enhancing the overall vitality and appeal of the JustLend DAO ecosystem, injecting strong growth resilience into its financial foundation.

In summary, JustLend DAO's contribution in Q4 2025 extends far beyond mere financial growth. Through solid operations, it accomplished two critical proofs: First, the protocol possesses the ability to continuously generate real, diversified revenue. Second, this revenue can and has been directly and transparently converted into deflationary pressure for JST according to established rules. The first buyback and burn was the "start button" for the mechanism, while the second served as proof of its "sustainability," providing the most fundamental performance basis for elevating "buyback and burn" from a one-time event to a long-term, anticipated value cycle.

Ecosystem Synergy: Broadening JST's Value Capture Boundaries

The funding sources for JST's "buyback and burn" mechanism demonstrate its design's open-minded vision. Beyond the protocol revenue from JustLend DAO, incremental earnings from the USDD multi-chain ecosystem constitute another crucial and significant value channel. According to the mechanism design, when USDD ecosystem revenue covers mining subsidies and the excess profit portion reaches the $10 million threshold, it triggers the buyback and burn of JST. This allows JST's buyback and burn mechanism to transcend the limitations of a single protocol, becoming deeply intertwined with the growth and profitability of the Tron core stablecoin ecosystem.

As the core decentralized stablecoin of the Tron ecosystem, USDD's multi-chain expansion strategy has achieved notable success. By successfully deploying on mainstream public chains like Ethereum and BNB Chain, USDD has effectively broadened its application boundaries and user reach. The Total Value Locked (TVL) and total supply of the USDD protocol have continued to rise. As of January 22, 2026, its TVL broke through the $1.3 billion mark, achieving over 100% growth in less than two months, while its total supply also surpassed the $1.1 billion milestone. This growth rate and market depth visually reflect the rapid adoption and asset appeal of this stablecoin within the multi-chain ecosystem.

USDD's rapid expansion momentum directly enhances the potential scale of its contribution to JST's buyback and burn plan. As the USDD ecosystem continues to thrive, this external value channel will provide a more substantial and predictable funding source for JST's deflation in subsequent quarters, further strengthening JST's value support.

The design of the value closed-loop within the JUST ecosystem constructs a synergistic, multi-party reinforcing loop. JustLend DAO, as the core engine generating protocol revenue, provides the fundamental driving force for JST's buyback and burn through its business growth. Meanwhile, the USDD multi-chain ecosystem serves as a key channel for external value input, with its expansion bringing excess revenue that provides additional, growing fuel for JST's deflation. Concurrently, the increasing scarcity and appreciation expectation of JST due to continuous burns feedback into and enhance the asset appeal and capital cohesion of the entire Tron DeFi ecosystem. This, in turn, attracts more users and assets to JustLend DAO and helps USDD consolidate and expand its application scenarios.

Within this loop, JST plays a crucial "value hub" role, efficiently coupling and mutually transforming the two major growth drivers of internal protocol operations and external ecosystem expansion. This ensures that the overall prosperity of the ecosystem can be continuously and verifiably translated into JST's own deterministic deflation and long-term value accumulation.

Worth special attention is that to ensure the credibility of the core "buyback and burn" value mechanism, JustLend DAO officially launched its dedicated "Transparency Portal" in Q4. This portal serves as an authoritative information hub, providing real-time, structured public disclosure of key on-chain data for each buyback and burn, including specific amounts, number of tokens burned, execution dates, etc. The institutionalization of transparency fundamentally eliminates trust issues that could arise from information asymmetry, providing the community and external observers with a credible source for evaluating the protocol's execution.

From a governance perspective, the quarterly burn mechanism is quietly conducting a "power concentration" for JST. As the total circulating supply irreversibly continues to decrease, the proportion of governance power represented by each non-burned JST token will passively increase. This means that long-term holders not only enjoy the potential value gains from deflation but also see their voting weight on critical matters such as JustLend DAO's future development direction synchronously enhanced. This deeply binds the most loyal community members to the protocol's long-term success, forming an extremely solid alliance of interests.

In summary, through the dual construction of "multi-protocol value input" and "endogenous deflationary scarcity," JST is undergoing a profound paradigm shift. It is evolving from a functional governance tool into a composite asset with clear cash flow support, dynamically increasing scarcity over time, and deeply embedded within a vast ecosystem.

Its buyback and burn mechanism is not merely a price support tool but a sophisticated, transparent infrastructure capable of achieving cross-ecosystem value aggregation and redistribution. This mechanism paves a clear and predictable long-term value trajectory for JST, making each periodic burn event a repeated verification and reinforcement of its underlying value logic. This marks a new stage of mature operation for a sustainable and verifiable DeFi value generation model.