If you are new to Solana or crypto in general, you might not know what pump.fun is. It started in early 2024 as a simple tool that allowed anyone to launch a memecoin in seconds. Since then, it has grown into one of the most active platforms in the entire crypto space.
Right now, pump.fun averages over 100,000 daily users and has processed more than $68 billion in trading volume. It has played a massive role in turning Solana into the go to place for memecoins. Whether you see that as a good thing or not depends on your view of what crypto should be.
Now the team behind pump.fun wants to launch its own token called $PUMP.
The initial coin offering, or ICO, will run from 12 July to 15 July. Out of a total supply of one trillion tokens, 33% will be sold to investors. 18% is reserved for private sale to large institutions, and 15% will go to the public.
Interestingly, pump.fun says that both private and public buyers are getting the same terms, which is rare in this space. But if you are based in the UK or US, you will not be allowed to take part. Also, the tokens will not be transferable for around 48 to 72 hours after the sale ends.
Even though $PUMP is not live yet, traders are already betting on it. Hyperliquid, a decentralised trading platform, has listed $PUMP perpetual futures. These are advanced contracts that allow people to bet on the price of the token going up or down, often using borrowed funds.
It is very rare for a token to have a futures market before it officially launches. But the interest is massive. By the afternoon of 10 July, traders had already opened $65 million worth of positions on $PUMP. That says a lot.
It tells us that speculators are not just excited. They are confident enough to put real money behind their predictions.
Pump.fun is not the only launchpad on Solana anymore. Over the last couple of months, a new competitor called bonk.fun has quietly overtaken it in terms of daily activity and trading volume.
So what changed?
Bonk.fun has a much more transparent and user-friendly model. Half of all platform fees are used to buy and burn its token, $BONK, which reduces the supply and increases the value. 8% goes into reserves. The rest is used to support the platform.
That kind of model directly rewards the people who use the platform. In contrast, pump.fun has often been criticised for being unclear about how its fees are used. Some say it simply sells large amounts of Solana and does little to give back to its users.
Pump.fun has announced that 24% of the total $PUMP supply will be allocated to the community and ecosystem. That is a big number. At a projected valuation of $4 billion, this would be worth around $960 million.
Naturally, everyone is hoping for a generous airdrop. But even if it happens, will it be enough to bring users back? Recent airdrops from projects like Jupiter and Pengu handed out billions of tokens, but did not lead to lasting spikes in trading or activity.
What makes this one different? Pump.fun’s audience. These are not casual users. They are meme traders, coin flippers, and degen creators who live and breathe onchain. If any group is likely to get excited about a large airdrop, it is them.
Here is where things start to get vague:
Right now, there is no official explanation of what benefits $PUMP holders will get. A rumour has circulated that 25% of pump.fun’s revenue will go back to token holders, but no one knows if that includes past revenue, or how it would work in practice.
That is a problem. Pump.fun is making serious money, more than $35 million a month since late last year. In total, the platform has generated more than $700 million in revenue. If some of that is shared with token holders, the value of $PUMP could be massive. But if not, what is the point of owning it?
One detail that stood out to me is that 3% of the token supply is being allocated to support content creators and streamers.
That might sound random, but it could be very clever. Pump.fun wants people to livestream their coin launches, make memes, and promote their experiences. In return, they could receive token rewards.
Other crypto platforms like friend.tech tried this approach and failed. But pump.fun has a bigger and more dedicated audience. If it gets this right, it could build an entirely new type of crypto native creator economy.