Is the Pump.fun Era Over?

Olivia Capozzalo & Camila Russo
May 16, 2025

Happy Friday, Defiers! It’s me, Cami.

Quick update: We’re changing up the daily newsletter format. Now you’ll get analysis of the latest news trends from yours truly (occasionally, other Defiant team members will step in), plus the top news we wrote in the past 24 hrs.

We hope you like the change – feedback is very welcome! Now let’s get to it.

The most interesting trend in DeFi right now is the memecoin wars. It’s a sign that hope is not lost in making crypto’s OG use case actually useful.

Crypto’s first non-money use case to find product-market fit was to let anyone anywhere issue tokens and buy tokens. Seems simple, but it’s a pretty revolutionary idea that anyone with an internet connection can issue an asset and sell it to anyone with an internet connection, with no intermediaries. It’s what ignited the first ever non-Bitcoin speculative crypto mania, with ICOs on Ethereum in 2017. NFTs in 2022 were a version of that, and of course, the latest memecoin frenzy is an obvious iteration.

And every time, crypto traders drove the meta to the most degen version of itself possible.

This cycle, it’s memecoins. Other than buying and selling inside jokes with other anons, memecoins never even had the pretense of aspiring to achieve a higher goal. And maybe that’s why this wave of “trading tokens on the internet” degraded so fast, with insiders manipulating markets to get in first and then dump on everyone else in schemes that involved from C-list celebrities to presidents.

The main platform where this activity is happening is pump.fun on the Solana network, which spurred the creation of 10 million tokens, generating a staggering $700 million in its brief 15-month existence. A Solidus Labs report says 99% of those memecoins are pump-and-dumps or rug pulls.

What we’re seeing now, though, is a reaction to the financial nihilism that has ruled crypto for the past year. Token launchpads are trying to create better — or at least different — models, chipping away at pump.fun dominance (also see the news below this section!).

No-code token launchpad Let’s BONK launched in April, with its key difference of offering 1% of its trading fees to token creators. The idea behind the rev share scheme is that creators will be more incentivized to stick around and provide value for their tokens. At the same time, there will be less of a reason for them to engage in the shady tactics that have become commonplace.

The downside is if most memecoins are already rug pulls, then scammers are just getting more money out of them. In any case, the idea took off and Let’s BONK started to make a dent in pump.fun’s market share. Pump.fun reacted by directing 0.05% of their trading fees to token creators.

Then there’s the most recent pump.fun challenger, Believe App, which lets anyone create a token by replying to the company’s X posts. No crypto knowledge or infra is required. Fees are also shared with token creators — in this case 50%. Though there has been some criticism here about whether creators are actually getting half.

The revenue sharing approach aims to attract founders building real products, rather than just memecoins. There have been some such cases, though the vast majority of the tokens launched are still, of course, memecoins.

Memecoins were briefly left for dead after everyone got fed up with the degree of crime and greed. Tokens like LIBRA and MELANIA made it clear it was an insiders’ game. Gamblers will leave the casino if they realize odds are always stacked against them. But these incipient memecoin wars show the sector is making a comeback.

I think that’s bullish. It shows there’s still optimism that we can find a better way of trading tokens on the internet. Hopefully, more innovation will mean better experiences for the market. Some low-hanging fruit for innovation would be vesting and the ability to customize supply and team distribution.

The best outcome is if we can create a future where all of the world’s biggest companies raise capital onchain, giving everyone access to their upside. On the way there, we should also figure out how to trade memecoins without getting fleeced.

Now, let’s look at the latest news

✍️ In today’s newsletter:

Markets are still flat
Coinbase is having a rough end of week
Moonpay and Mastercard partner on USDT card
Binance’s latest report is on DeFAI growth
Pump.fun’s dominance slips

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Crypto Market Stalls Despite Positive Inflation Data

The cryptocurrency market remained flat today, with most large-cap crypto assets seeing almost no change over the week as well. ETH and DOGE are the exceptions, both up about 10% on the week.

“The market is experiencing a pause due to profit-taking and extremely thin liquidity,” Aran Hawker, CEO at CoinPanel told The Defiant. “Lower-cap assets, compared to Bitcoin, amplify their moves significantly in both directions under these conditions.”

Coinbase Data Breach Reignites Debate Over Crypto Security Models

Coinbase started the week strong with the news that it would be included in the S&P 500, sending COIN stock surging. But yesterday, the firm confirmed two pieces of bad news: members of Coinbase’s customer support team were bribed to share private customer data, sparking a broader debate about the security tradeoffs between CEXs and DeFi protocols.

Also, the SEC is investigating the exchange giant for inflating user numbers ahead of its IPO.

🎬WATCH

In The Defiant’s latest podcast episode, we spoke to Patrick Amadon about the complex intersections of digital privacy, surveillance, censorship, and the potential of decentralized AI.