pump.fun Poaches Top KOL from Competitor in High-Stakes Move, Meme Launch Platform Battle Intensifies
BlockBeats News, recently, several crypto KOLs revealed that the meme launchpad platform pump.fun is offering a significant hiring bonus to FOMO users of a competing platform ($20,000 signing bonus + $30,000 monthly) to migrate to its app, with the protocol also including strict migration terms and payment conditions, such as requiring users to transfer funds and positions, use a dedicated wallet, publicly declare it as their sole wallet, permanently delete their FOMO account, prohibit the use of the wallet on competing platforms, and include non-disparagement clauses.
This controversial poaching incident occurred against the backdrop of pump.fun's declining revenue and FOMO's soaring income. According to DefiLlama data, pump.fun's revenue in the past 7 days was $6.49 million, undoubtedly ranking first, but the pressure from pursuers behind has never eased. FOMO's revenue in the past 7 days was $2.64 million, rapidly growing since July, reaching new highs. In addition, the meme coin flap, which has performed well on both the BSC and Robinhood chains recently, has generated $1.39 million in revenue.
Therefore, combining pump.fun's newly launched social trading feature this week, it is conceivable that pump.fun is now offering a lucrative poaching agreement to stifle its fast-growing competitors in their infancy. It is worth noting that although this behavior is controversial, crypto lawyer Ariel Givner's analysis indicates that pump.fun's actions do not violate any laws and regulations and represent a classic business transaction.
Finally, moving beyond platform competition, from the perspective of meme coin issuance, the above phenomenon may represent that the meme market has entered the second stage: transitioning from launchpad infrastructure competition (Pumpfun winning by simplifying token creation), shifting towards attention distribution network competition, with a focus on KOLs, signal channels, and community outreach.
