The Ronin Treasury is looking to buy back over $4 million worth of RON tokens from the open market in a bid to reduce the circulating supply of the token, which could push up prices.
The gaming-focused blockchain Ronin Network announced on Sunday that it will begin swapping all of its Ether (ETH) and USDC (USDC) holdings for RON over the course of a month, starting on Sept. 29.
The buybacks will increase the amount of Ronin (RON) in the treasury and decrease the amount of Ronin tokens in circulation. There are currently 693 million out of a total 1 billion tokens circulating, giving Ronin a market capitalization of $355.7 million.
The buyback scheme will “further align our ecosystem, tokenholders, and builders as Ronin evolves into a full-fledged layer-2,” the team said, adding that it will also enable more growth “as the rest of the world comes back to Web3 gaming.”
The Ronin Treasury is currently worth around $5.5 million, with its largest holding 896 Ronin Wrapped Ether (WETH) valued at around $3.9 million.
Less ETH, more RON
In addition to the Ether, the treasury also contains 652,000 USDC (which will also be sold), 1.2 million RON and wrapped RON and several memecoins.
The funds were accumulated through fees from the Katana DEX, Ronin Market and Ronin Name Service over several years, it stated.
The buyback represents approximately 1.3% of RON’s current circulating supply, and the treasury has no plans to sell any.
Ronin Treasury buyback plans. Source: Ronin Network
Ronin returns to Ethereum
Ronin announced its comeback in August, stating that it is returning as a layer-2 network on Ethereum.
Related: Axie Infinity creator Ronin network coming back to Ethereum as L2
The chain was originally spun off from the Ethereum mainnet in 2021 as it sought better network speeds and cheaper transaction fees for its non-fungible token (NFT) Web3 game, Axie Infinity.
The team has now noted the rise of Ethereum and wants to be part of that growth. “Ronin’s Homecoming to Ethereum is approaching. Wall Street is jumping into our industry,” it stated.
The network has declined since its Ronin Bridge sidechain was hacked for $600 million in March 2022, the industry’s largest crypto hack at the time.
Total value locked fell from around $1.2 billion in early 2022 to current levels of around $56 million, according to DeFillama.
RON price reacts
RON prices reacted sharply to the announcement with an 11% spike to reach $0.54 on Sunday; however, it had fallen back to $0.51 at the time of writing.
RON is currently down more than 88% from its March 2024 all-time high of $4.45 and has traded flat for the past six months.
RON has traded flat since April. Source: TradingView
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