Pump.Fun Token Launch: Turning Point or Endgame for the Meme Sector?

Pump.fun is finally going to issue coin.

On July 12 at 22:00, Pump.fun will launch the public sale of the PUMP token. Out of a total supply of 1 trillion tokens, 150 billion tokens will be sold at a unit price of 0.004 USDT, aiming to raise 600 million dollars with a valuation of 4 billion dollars for this round. In addition, the project team also plans to sell tokens worth 700 million dollars to institutions through private placement.

These numbers did not appear for the first time on social media, but when presented to us in the form of an official announcement, it still feels somewhat absurd. A Memecoin Launchpad is set to sell $600 million worth of coins, and this is happening in the summer of 2025 when liquidity is low, narratives are cooling down, and the community is on edge. This is the most anticipated token issuance in the Meme space this year and may also become a landmark event marking the entry of the Meme ecosystem into the “post-Doge era.”

Criticism of “too greedy” and “harvesting the last liquidity” has long been unending. But before we truly ask whether it is “worth it,” we must first acknowledge one thing: the entire Meme narrative has relied solely on Pump.fun over the past year.

Is the precise Meme printing machine worth 4 billion dollars?

Pump.fun is undoubtedly the “money printer.”

According to data from DefiLlama, Pump.fun has generated over 30 million USD in revenue in the last 30 days, with an annual revenue of 370 million USD and a historical cumulative revenue exceeding 700 million USD. It has become the undisputed traffic core of the Solana ecosystem and even one of the most profitable protocols in the entire Web3.

But Pump.fun brings more than just numerical shock; it reconstructs the production method and dissemination logic of Memecoins, transforming it from an accidental, manual, and marginal cultural product into a standardized, procedural, and scalable content commodity. On the Pump.fun website, anyone can issue coin with one click, without censorship or approval, and for just a few dollars in fees, it can all be done in one go.

Once launched, it opens for trading; once trading starts, it spreads; once it spreads, it becomes a game of chance—this is an almost industrialized Meme model, and also a new attention economy.

At that time, the most notable news in the Solana community was that the DePIN completed financing, which turned into a meme dog that surged a thousand times overnight on Pump.fun.

Pump.fun does not tell stories itself, but rather provides people with the “narrative” fishing rod, allowing anyone to tell stories and hype them up to monetize through stories. Moreover, it has directly pushed Memecoin to the center of the entire industry’s narrative, becoming the main line of the Web3 attention market.

The biggest controversy surrounding this issue coin is the $4 billion platform valuation set by Pump.fun.

This figure is not unfounded. Pump.fun’s historical cumulative revenue ranks among the top in all Web3 applications, second only to infrastructure-level projects like Tether and PancakeSwap. The price-to-sales ratio (PS) calculated based on nearly a year of revenue is 10.8 times—though this is higher than traditional SaaS companies (usually between 5 and 10 times), it is not considered overvalued in the high-growth, high-profit Web3 industry.

Related reading: 《Is pump.fun worth 4 billion dollars now?>

But the problem is that these revenues are highly dependent on the overall popularity of the Meme track. In November last year and January this year, when market sentiment was high, the “graduation rate” of the Pump.fun platform once exceeded 1.6%, and the platform’s daily revenue repeatedly reached tens of millions of dollars, making it a printing machine for the industry. However, as the market cooled, the number of token launches, active trading volume, and user participation all showed a significant decline, with enthusiasm sharply reduced and momentum lost.

The skepticism from the outside world does not negate the former glory of Pump.fun, but rather questions whether it can still support a valuation of 4 billion dollars in the current sluggish market environment.

From casino to media, Pump.fun’s “self-rescue transformation” has failed.

In the face of the simultaneous retreat of liquidity and popularity, Pump.fun is attempting to reposition itself as a “launch factory,” shifting towards a more narrative and content-driven entertainment platform. This transformation is unfolding through “live streaming” and “internet celebrity creation.”

Pump.fun launched a $1 million streamer incentive program at the end of May this year, supporting native content creators to live stream on its platform. Among them, Israeli Gainzy is regarded by the community as the representative figure of this live streaming transformation. This streamer, who became famous for criticizing Vitalik during a live stream, has become the most popular ecological IP on Pump.fun. The live coin $GAINZY under his name once broke through a market value of $10 million, fluctuating before and after each live stream due to streaming traffic and emotions. Gainzy’s live streams even attracted founders from leading Web3 projects such as Yuga Labs and Pudgy Penguins to watch and interact with him.

Compared to traditional Memes that rely on community users to spread on X, Pump.fun is creating content streamers as traffic nodes to keep the heat and attention within its own ecosystem.

At the same time, some tokens that originally seemed nonsensical have been given a clearer narrative of “identity recognition”. For example, $NEET, shaped by nihilism, represents a group image of “no work, no education, no training”, striking at the generational anxiety of Gen Z; $CHILLHOUSE, with its nonsensical question “Thoughts on chillhouse?”, has sparked viral imitations in multiple live streams.

From “pump” to “narrative”, from “sensation” to “resonance”, Pump.fun is trying to extend the lifespan of memes—it’s no longer just a PvP profit-making platform, but also aims to become a subcultural stage for young people to express themselves and carry a sense of belonging.

However, at the same time that Pump.fun is striving to tell a new story, external competitive pressure is becoming increasingly severe. LetsBonk.fun is launching an attack on Pump.fun’s leading position by leveraging Bonk’s community status, its close ties with Raydium and the Solana Foundation, as well as the wealth effect of leading tokens like $USELESS.

According to on-chain data, as of July 7, LetsBonk.fun has surpassed Pump.fun on several key metrics:

Market share: LetsBonk has reached 55.22%, while Pump.fun has decreased to 34.86%;

Protocol income in the last 24 hours: LetsBonk at $1.04 million, first surpassing Pump.fun;

The number of issued coins and user activity are also significantly ahead of Pump.fun.

This overtaking on the curve is not accidental. Compared to Pump.fun’s long-term high commission and high centralization mechanism, LetsBonk has chosen a completely different route: 50% of the platform’s transaction fees will be used for the buyback and burn of BONK tokens, and an additional 8% will be allocated for strategic reserves and community incentives. In terms of revenue structure, it clearly binds the interests of users and developers, making every creator a beneficiary of the platform’s growth.

Related Reading:《Comprehensive suppression of Pump.fun, what has LetsBonk been up to lately?>

More importantly, LetsBonk founder Tom “High-Intensity Online” has been maintaining the community’s reputation by frequently fixing bugs and optimizing the interface since June, and he actively uses Chinese characters like “你好” in the Chinese community, demonstrating a clear “localization affinity.” This rare attitude of a founder in the Solana ecosystem greatly enhances community stickiness.

As a result, more and more users are “voting with their feet” and have shifted their attention and funds to the Bonk ecosystem even before Pump.fun officially issues coin. The rapid increase in the market value of $BONK has also become a market-side confirmation of this trend.

You may hate Pump.fun, but Memecoin is not dead yet.

4 billion dollars is the price that Pump.fun has offered to the market. This price may be too high, or it may underestimate its potential as a “narrative factory.” But no matter how you judge it, it has been the most important attention aggregator in this industry.

It is neither the endgame of Meme nor a hero’s savior. It is merely a node in the grassroots cultural wave of Web3 - imperfect, unethical, and even somewhat greedy, but it indeed propels the story forward.

Who will be the next Pump.fun? Nobody knows. But we know that the story will continue. Because there will always be people who want to issue coin, there will always be people who want to get rich, and there will always be people who want to change their destiny.

And this is the power of Memecoin.

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