The Myth Behind Pump.fun's Coin Issuance Carnival: Market Divergence and Future Trends

Recently, the most关注的 token issuance in the cryptocurrency market (TGE) is none other than Pump.fun. This event has been brewing since June, continuing to ferment amid numerous expectations and doubts, until it officially launched on July 12. Despite the market's skepticism about its $4 billion valuation, the enthusiasm from investors remains high based on actual data. The public offering quota was quickly sold out in just 12 minutes, and some investors even expressed strong dissatisfaction on social media for not being able to participate.

At present, the performance of Pump.fun can be considered relatively satisfactory. After its launch, its price has shown a stable upward trend. More notably, Pump.fun has recently conducted its first token buyback using revenue from transaction fees. However, whether this price trend can be maintained in the long term remains an unresolved mystery for many.

Looking back at the leaders of this bull market, Pump.fun undoubtedly occupies an important position. It is no exaggeration to say that the emergence of Pump.fun has pushed MEME tokens to a new height. Its concept of fair launch and convenient operation has completely broken the high threshold of traditional issuance models. The enticing prospect of creating a token for just 3 dollars remains highly attractive, even today as the MEME craze gradually fades.

From a mechanism design perspective, Pump.fun does not have a pre-sale or private placement phase and employs smart contract pricing throughout. Even more noteworthy is its "graduation mechanism"—when the market value of the token reaches $69,000, the system will automatically create a liquidity pool on the decentralized exchange (DEX). This nearly fully automated listing process has been well received in the market, making Pump.fun one of the strongest "money printers" in this market cycle.

Since its launch in January 2024, the total issued token quantity of Pump.fun has reached 11.44 million coins, with more than 22 million active addresses and a cumulative revenue of nearly $720 million. Among them, the highest daily transaction fee revenue once reached $5.43 million, and the peak daily revenue was an astonishing $15.88 million. It can be said that the dividends of this round of the MEME market have almost been captured entirely by Pump.fun, further promoting the development of the Solana ecosystem.

However, when a project that started with MEME suddenly announced the issuance of a coin, it triggered widespread controversy in the market. The rumors about Pump.fun's coin issuance can be traced back to February of this year. At that time, there were reports that Pump.fun originally planned to issue coins on a centralized exchange and had even prepared the complete documentation for the coin issuance, but later it was put on hold due to the frequent issuance of specific MEME coins leading to liquidity exhaustion. By June, rumors about the coin issuance resurfaced. According to a news platform, Pump.fun plans to raise $1 billion through the sale of coins, with a valuation of $4 billion, and the coins will be sold to both the public and private investors.

On July 10th, Pump.fun finally announced that it will officially launch the native token PUMP public offering on July 12, 2025, at 22:00, and the PUMP airdrop is also coming soon. A total of 150 billion coins will be issued at a price of 0.004 USDT, accounting for 15% of the total supply (1 trillion coins). Based on a valuation of 4 billion USD, the financing amount for this round is 600 million USD. It is worth noting that, for compliance reasons, participants from the UK and the US are excluded from this sale. In terms of PUMP token economics, 33% is allocated for public sale, 24% for community and ecological incentives, 20% for the team, 2.4% for the ecological fund, 2% for the foundation, 13% for existing investors, 3% for live broadcast related purposes, and 2.6% for liquidity and exchanges.

However, compared to the previous market's fervent expectations for issuing coins, when it actually comes to issuing coins, it encounters a collective market pessimism. The focus of the controversy is on the $4 billion valuation. It is worth noting that the last stablecoin giant listed on the New York Stock Exchange had a valuation of only about $7 billion. Even traditional financial institutions are like this, yet an on-chain gambling platform claims a $4 billion valuation, even surpassing most current DeFi blue-chip protocols, which has led the market to exclaim that it has excessively overdrawn liquidity.

More critically, the current market environment has undergone significant changes. Looking at today's cryptocurrency market, apart from the recent recovery of mainstream tokens like Bitcoin, most altcoins and MEME tokens are still experiencing a sluggish trend. This is evident from the trading volume data. According to statistics from a data analysis platform, after reaching a peak trading volume of $5.44 million on January 23, 2025, the trading volume of Pump.fun has shown a sharp decline. The recent daily trading volume has stabilized at around $700,000, marking a drop of 87.2% from its peak. In terms of the number of tokens created, the daily token creation has plummeted from a peak of 70,000 to 30,000, nearly halving. The "graduation rate" of tokens is even more astonishingly low, dropping from 1.6% in 2024 to now below 1%. These data clearly indicate that the wealth creation effect of the MEME market is weakening, the market is gradually cooling down, and user enthusiasm is rapidly waning. No matter how powerful Pump.fun is, it is essentially just a tool that relies on the overall heat of the MEME market. This is also one of the important reasons why the market has raised doubts about its valuation.

On the other hand, although the overall market is shrinking, Pump.fun's competitors are on the rise. Once almost monopolizing the market, Pump.fun has recently faced considerable pressure. Not long ago, the competitor letsbonk.fun, centered around BONK, developed rapidly, surpassing Pump.fun multiple times in the number of tokens issued and temporarily taking the top position in market share. Although Pump.fun quickly retaliated, the competition between the two remains fierce, and it must be admitted that Pump.fun's leading position has been severely challenged.

For these reasons, the $4 billion valuation of Pump.fun has been severely questioned. After rumors of issuing coins in June emerged, the market experienced a wave of risk aversion, and popular MEME tokens in the Solana ecosystem saw significant pullbacks, with funds quickly flowing out. A partner at an investment firm bluntly stated that this ICO is more like a liquidity exit operation rather than a long-term development plan. A cryptocurrency researcher even directly pointed out that Pump.fun is staging a complete "harvest operation."

Interestingly, back in March 2024, the co-founder of Pump.fun stated on social media that every presale is a scam. Ironically, Pump.fun is issuing coins in the form of a presale this time, which makes one marvel at the unpredictability of the world. This coin issuance raised 33% of the total supply, with 18% allocated to the private placement round for institutions and 15% for the public offering round. All coins will be fully unlocked on the first day of listing.

Despite the generally pessimistic attitude among industry insiders, supporters and institutional investors clearly have a different perspective. In terms of public offering, the PUMP token completed a public offering quota of $500 million in just 12 minutes. Several major exchanges participated in the PUMP public offering. According to a data panel, the number of wallet addresses that participated in the pre-sale on the Pump.fun official website and completed KYC is 23,959, with 10,145 wallet addresses successfully purchasing, and the average subscription amount being $44,209. A total of 89.7% of the PUMP token pre-sale was completed through the official website, while the total amount sold on all exchanges accounted for only 10.3%. Among the official pre-sale addresses, small users are the main group, with 5,758 users subscribing for PUMP within $1,000, while the number of addresses with subscriptions exceeding one million dollars is 202, also indicating strong interest from institutional investors.

The entire process perfectly illustrates the unique phenomenon of "hypocritical behavior" in the cryptocurrency market. Due to technical issues that occurred during the public sale process in some exchanges, some users found it difficult to complete their subscriptions, and several users even expressed their dissatisfaction on social media. At that time, there was a significant divide in the community regarding the subsequent performance of PUMP. One side believed that the valuation was too high and would collapse once the spotlight effect faded; the other side argued that Pump, as the most representative product in the MEME field, has a complete revenue logic and cognitive foundation, and would not easily fall from grace.

As it stands, the latter seems to have gained the upper hand temporarily. After being listed on a certain trading platform on July 15, PUMP briefly fell from $0.0065 to $0.0042, but soon rebounded and began to rise. Currently priced at $0.0066, it has increased by 55% compared to the fundraising price of $0.004, and the fully diluted market cap has risen from $4 billion to $6.6 billion, bringing considerable profits to the subscribers.

Of course, behind this part of the price increase, there are also human factors. According to observations from a certain on-chain analyst, as of 8 AM this morning, Pump.fun began using transaction fee income to buy back PUMP after issuing coins. In the past 7 hours, they transferred 187,770 SOL of transaction fee income to a specific address, purchased PUMP, and then transferred the acquired tokens to another address for storage. So far, they have used 111,953 SOL (approximately 1.83 million USD) to purchase 3.04 billion PUMP, with an average price of 0.006 USD. Although this buyback behavior can support the price, it inevitably raises suspicions of hand-to-hand trading. However, for holders, regardless of the purpose, as long as it can drive up the coin price, it is ultimately a good thing.

Whether it is to exit liquidity or simply to build the ecosystem, the controversy surrounding the valuation of Pump.fun reflects the current state of the market. The MEME sector, which once excelled in liquidity, is collectively falling into trouble, and the once booming attention economy seems to be gradually becoming a false proposition. Today, even the most representative applications have to embark on the path of issuing coins, which may hint at the end of a certain narrative. The future direction of the MEME market will depend on the performance of the PUMP token, which will become an important barometer. The market's bets on it are essentially an important judgment on the value of the attention economy. If the token price continues to rise, it at least indicates that the market recognizes its pricing; whereas if the token price plummets, people will have to rethink the true value of the MEME market, which may trigger more selling sentiment. This might also be one of the reasons why Pump.fun chose to conduct a buyback.

Returning to the question posed in the title: Who is the winner in the Pump.fun issue coin? Undoubtedly, the project team is the biggest beneficiary. From the current perspective, investors participating in the public and private placements have also achieved considerable profits, and short-term bullish investors are similarly reaping significant rewards. However, how long this profitable situation can continue, and at what level the project team can maintain the coin price, remains a huge unknown. Some large holders have already chosen to take their profits. According to a report from a monitoring platform, one large holder spent 5 million USDC through 5 wallets to participate in the PUMP public sale, purchasing 1.25 billion PUMP, and sold all of it today at an average price of $0.0067, making a profit of $3.416 million.

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