I don't like buyback programs, I think that they are an artificial mean to drive up the price, only in the short term (also, only if you burn said coins/tokens)
In this case it is the opposite: the company is using SPHTX to buy the ERC20, so they are actually going to ignite more and more the supply.
Exactly, they are all the old ERC20 tokens from before SPHTX went over to their own chain.