What Is Pump.fun and Why Has It Become a Trend?

In 2024, memecoins have been stealing the show in the crypto sector, being the most profitable asset category. Pump.fun, launched amid the memecoin craze, has gained a lot of attention. On July 1, the platform generated $1,99 million in revenue compared to Ethereum’s $1,91 million, according to data from DeFiLlama.

Users need a crypto wallet to connect to the app and invest in memecoins early on. Clicking the “start a new coin” button, everyone can create a memecoin; all they need to do is to upload a jpeg file, and fill in a token’s name, a ticker and a description. Launching a coin requires a fee of around 0.02 SOL, which is around $3 at current rates. 

So, it requires no technical knowledge or a large amount of money to launch a memecoin on Pump.fun. No need to know about tokenomics, token standards and other technological aspects. The main idea is to come up with something funny, attention-grabbing and promote the token through marketing. That’s probably why many people have decided to try out their luck. According to Dune Analytics, more than 1,2 million tokens have been created on Pump.fun since the platform’s launch.

When coins hit a market cap of around $69,000, they enter the next stage of their lifecycle; Pump.fun closes the trading and the tokens migrate to Raydium, a Solana-based decentralized exchange. 

How the Pump.fun platform works. Source: pump.fun

The term ‘bonding curve' on the website refers to the algorithmic mechanism that determines prices based on the token's supply. In simple words, buying a token on the bonding curve means purchasing it on the platform at a certain price.

Appearing on Raydium marks the assets’ broad availability for traders outside Pump.fun. According to CoinGecko, the market cap of Pump.fun ecosystem coins currently is above $447 million. Among the viral coins are animal-themed tokens, celebrity coins (that celebrities sometimes have no idea about), TV show-inspired coins, and others. 

Hype Around Celebrity Coins 

Celebrity-issued coins have been a trending and controversial category on Pump.fun. Iggy Azalea, Caitlyn Jenner, and other public figures launched their cryptos through the platform. Initially, these coins saw high trading volumes but have mostly declined since.

Australian rapper and model Iggy Azalea launched her MOTHER token in late May. MOTHER reached around $150 M market cap in ten days, according to data from CoinGecko. At the time of writing, however, the token’s market cap is around $41 M, and the price is 81% down from its all-time high. On June 10, Azalea announced that her telecommunication company Unreal Mobile accepts payments in MOTHER and SOL tokens. It's still early to say how it will go, but the star’s X (formerly Twitter) account is all about the coin. 

Another big celebrity coin launch on Pump.fun was the JENNER coin, issued by former Olympic gold medalist athlete and reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner. Within 8 hours of its release, JENNER reached a market cap of $42 M and then saw a sharp decline. A major reason for the drop was Caitlyn Jenner's post about a second coin launch, which she deleted soon after posting. 

As often happens, hype, disputes, and scams are intertwined. In the case of celebrity coins, one name popped up in different stories as a scammer. Celebrities, one after another accused Sahil Arora, a celebrity memecoin promoter of fraud. 

Caitlyn Jenner said Arora stole lots of money from her and disappeared. She mentioned being focused on the Jenner token, while Arora is now completely out of the project. 

The crypto promoter faced backlash for launching IGGY memecoin and announcing collaboration without the rapper’s involvement. Sahil posted about a partnership with Azalea in a Telegram group and generated  $380,000 by selling IGGY tokens. Meanwhile, Iggy Azalea had already announced the launch of her own coin (the above-mentioned MOTHER). She warned investors on X that nobody was working with her, and Sahil’s claims about their partnership are false. 

Eventually, Sahil Arora was banned from X after numerous posts accusing him of spammy activities. 

Not Fun Day in Pump.fun’s History

On May 16, 2024 Pump.fun experienced a $2M hack. They announced on X about compromised smart contracts and halted trading. 

Earlier, an account named @STACCoverflow was revealed as being the attacker behind the hack. In a post he mentioned working on Pump.fun and said that the bosses were horrible. STAC stated that the goal of the hack was not to make profit, but to kill the platform. He started to distribute the tokens between random Solana wallets, with several X users reporting receiving SOL tokens unexpectedly.

In response to the hack, Pump.fun upgraded smart contracts, and resumed trading the next day. They confirmed that the hack was conducted by a former employee who “used their privileged position at the company to misappropriate ~12.3K SOL (~$1.9m).” 

According to the latest news, @STACCoverflow was identified as Jarett Dunn and was arrested in London. A separate account on X, @jarettdunn wrote that he was released on bail and was under mental health evaluation. 

Who the hacker referred to as ”horrible bosses” is not known because the pump.fun founders prefer to be anonymous and use pseudonyms “Alon” and “Sapijiju.”

To Use or Not to Use Pump.fun?

Pump.fun is a young and notable platform for the memecoin community. Among the reasons why it’s become trendy are lower costs, ease of use, and funny concepts. The platform states that it prevents rugpulls by ensuring each token’s launch is fair without presale or team allocation. 

Pump.fun does not have a native token yet (no announced plans either), so the main question is whether it’s worth investing in memecoins launched on Pump.fun, or creating your token? This is an individual decision but there are general rules you can apply to minimize the risks of financial losses when trading memecoins. First, note that relatively few tokens have a chance to achieve long-term growth. While this is true for every cryptocurrency, the nature of memecoins and the large number of tokens launched on Pump.fun makes the competition more difficult. In any case, following the practice “only invest money that you could afford to lose” would be a reasonable decision. Also, check for copied coins to avoid losses, and look for tokens with original ideas.