Pump.fun is about to launch its token, how is the community responding?

In the recent crypto market, although thousands of new tokens are still flooding the Solana blockchain every day, it has been a long time since the last "everyone chasing dogs" frenzy, and the market has entered a high-frequency but powerless state. Against this backdrop, the hot infrastructure project Pump.fun was rumored to raise $10 billion at a $40 billion fully-diluted valuation, officially launching its platform token $PUMP.

The market's reaction to this development has been mixed. On one hand, Pump.fun has demonstrated strong user engagement and revenue-generating ability on the Solana blockchain over the past year, reaching peaks of daily revenue exceeding tens of millions of dollars, supporting its high valuation. On the other hand, many have questioned the sustainability of its profitability, whether the platform token has a reasonable value capture mechanism, and its negative impact on Solana's liquidity.

More importantly, this valuation level is close to that of compliant crypto infrastructure companies like Circle, which have a clear advantage in business stability and regulatory compliance. Furthermore, Pump.fun's revenue is highly dependent on market sentiment, with significant income fluctuations, challenging the long-term validity of its valuation.

This article compiles different views from industry observers on this event, covering multiple dimensions such as project valuation structure, user incentive design, and ecological impact assessment, attempting to present readers with a more complete picture of the discussion. Whether this is the final sprint in the liquidity downturn, a key battle in the platform's transformation, or both, may still need time to validate.

Related Reading: "$40 Billion Valuation Token Launch, Is Pump.fun a Market Savior or Liquidity Killer?"

Pumpfun is an Ecological Predator and Does Not Deserve Support

@imperooterxbt

The Pumpfun team made $10 million in fees and all the profits went into their own pockets. Launchcoin also earned $10 million in fees, but only took 20% of it.

Pumpfun betrayed Raydium—a veteran protocol that had supported it from an early stage. It even launched its own Pumpswap on Raydium, but is now turning the tables on them. In contrast, Launchcoin chose to collaborate with Meteora (Jupiter system), a top Solana LP service platform.

Pumpfun is backstabbing everyone on Solana and all protocols, while also being one of Solana's biggest sources of selling pressure. Meanwhile, Raydium at least does token buybacks with fees, while Pumpfun does nothing. Pumpfun is not good for the whole ecosystem. Its founder did not come to help Solana but to plunder.

In contrast, Believe app is at least "the lesser of two evils." Pasternak is at least willing to win together with existing projects and takes less. Pumpfun doesn't see users as people at all, only as ATMs. If it continues to drain the ecosystem and leech off other apps, Solana will ultimately decline along with its users. It's time to stop supporting apps that never give back to users.

Overvalued, Lack of Transparency

@S4mmyEth

Will Pump.fun's token holders receive fee dividends in the future? Or will there be an embedded token buyback mechanism? If neither, then I really can't see the value of buying this token at a $40 billion valuation.

Even more outrageous is that the total market cap of all meme coins issued on Pump is only $5 billion more than the amount they raised. Early investors have feasted too well. As I recall, the valuations of the previous few rounds of funding were $12 million, $100 million, and $250 million, respectively.

This means that the earliest round has seen a paper return of 333 times! And loyal users currently have no information about any airdrops— I have more questions than answers now.

This is a Test of Solana's Liquidity

@MiyaHedge

PumpFun's first-round seed funding was valued at $12 million. In other words, seed round investors have already seen a paper gain of 322 times with $PUMP in this round, and if estimated at TGE (Token Generation Event), it may have already flipped 1,000 times.

This industry is absolutely crazy. But unfortunately, I can't see a scenario where a PUMP would attract a large number of buyers — because on Solana, almost everyone has already gone bankrupt due to PumpFun. If I were @a1lon9, I would probably do the same thing. They really do need this $1 billion funding to compete with platforms like Kick, Twitch, and others.

I might choose to airdrop a large amount of tokens back to community users — anyway, everyone is already addicted to gambling, and the liquidity received will sooner or later flow back to the casino (PumpFun). Interestingly, how big will this on-chain "stimulus plan" be? Will it drain on-chain liquidity or actually increase it? To be honest, I tend to think it will drain liquidity — this seems to be contrary to the mainstream view on Crypto Twitter (CT).

I prefer to see this as a wealth transfer — from the wealthier individuals, through PF's liquidity pool (funded by VCs), to the airdrop recipients. At the same time, perpetual contract funding will drive up spot prices, effectively serving as an exit liquidity for airdrop users.

Overall, I believe the launch of this token is more beneficial than harmful to the on-chain ecosystem.

Valuation May Be Reasonable, but Fundraising Method Raises Red Flags

@deadbolting

Some detailed thoughts on Pump.fun's token launch (the following opinions are based on the assumption that the information circulating on Twitter is accurate)

A $4 billion valuation may be reasonable, but the size of the fundraising is simply too large. Raising $800 million from retail alone could likely dampen buy-side demand at the TGE (Token Generation Event), thereby limiting upside price potential.

Such a fundraising scale is essentially an "extractive" behavior.

Yes, it will indeed cause some level of liquidity drain in the market, but the impact is mainly focused on SOL and the Solana ecosystem. You can assess whether your token holders might liquidate their positions to go all-in on PUMP, such as HYPE's loyal users probably won't, but Solana ecosystem project holders might. In the end, those coins with strong fundamentals, even in the face of short-term liquidity drainage, will eventually rebound.

The airdrop ratio is only 10%, which seems rather low. A more suitable range would be 15%-20%.

I would be surprised if the token's FDV (Fully Diluted Valuation) falls below 30 billion for an extended period. Although the platform's revenue growth has indeed slowed down, pump.fun is still by far the leading meme coin issuance platform at the moment, with a very high user mindshare.

The mcap/fdv (market cap to Fully Diluted Valuation ratio) will heavily depend on the token's supply control intensity—or if there's any control at all.

Allocating 25% of the platform's revenue for token value accrual is actually on the lower side (especially when compared to Hyperliquid's 97% buyback). While I don't expect them to reach the same level as HL, a 50% ratio might be more appropriate.

Overall, I don't believe that a $40 billion valuation would be a disaster (it might even temporarily experience a "pump and dump" to $60-80 billion), but their current funding method and scale concern me: by the time the TGE (Token Generation Event) actually goes live, there may be no new buyers in the market, while a significant number of investors holding 25% of the total supply are ready to sell.

Timing Mistake

@milesdeutscher

Some unfiltered thoughts and perspectives on the Pump.fun token:

Regarding Pump itself:

Personally, I feel like the token issuance timing is a bit late, considering that the platform's fee revenue has significantly slowed down, which will have a negative impact on market sentiment and external perception.

They have already earned $7.38 billion in fee revenue... If a portion of this is not fed back to the ecosystem for incentives, then I really don't know what to say (at first glance, this is almost diametrically opposed to the $HYPE philosophy—but until more tokenomics details are disclosed, let's give them some trust space).

They don't really need to raise another $10 billion (they already have over $7 billion in the bank!)... This is purely a case of "using a sledgehammer to crack a nut," clearly an opportunistic behavior to capitalize on the momentum.

Regarding potential ripple effects:

There may be a certain negative impact on $SOL in the short term, as some funds will likely move from SOL to $PUMP. Many people previously bought SOL essentially to speculate on the growth of returns related to the Pump.fun platform's fees.

However, this kind of fund rotation is very likely to evolve into a typical "buy the rumor, sell the news" market scenario, meaning that SOL's downward pressure was actually priced in by the market well before the news was officially released.

This could lead to a continued weakening of the SOL/ETH exchange rate (even though it is currently near a support level) and trigger early-stage fund rotation towards other L1 public blockchains.

From a broader market perspective, this fund rotation may not necessarily be a bad thing: I myself have made a good profit within the Solana ecosystem, but I have always believed that an ETH ecosystem rally has a more positive "wealth effect" on the overall market. In contrast, Solana has always been too PvP (player vs. player) and high-frequency rotation-oriented.

I am still not pessimistic about SOL's long-term performance; its ecosystem stickiness and user mindset are already very strong. However, we need to be cautious about the impact of this current volatility in the short term. If there is a significant pullback in the coming months, it may actually present a good opportunity to increase positions.

The Ambition Behind Building a Crypto Social Loop

@WagmiWan

I do not believe that Pumpfun launching its token will lead to Solana's "death" as some people have suggested. After all, this token is still deployed on the Solana blockchain, and the ecosystem activities remain on Solana.

Early investors have already made significant gains, and I bet they have brought in a lot of top VC funding. If a large number of retail FOMO buyers enter during the public sale phase, it may cause considerable selling pressure. After all, buying in at a $40 billion valuation, the potential gains for regular users are far outweighed by the risks they face—it can easily turn into early private sale investors' "exit liquidity."

At their current revenue level, they do not actually need further funding unless there is a more grand vision behind it. They are also aware that this "casino model" is not sustainable. It is highly exploitative, with insiders, packers, and snipers taking advantage. The premise for this system to work is to have enough "suckers" coming in every day to continuously give money, but this is unlikely to last.

I believe that the reason for their funding is likely to build a truly "crypto-native" social + live streaming platform. In the future, you won't need to go to YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, X, or Reddit to consume crypto content or participate in discussions—you will just need Pumpfun. A closed-loop ecosystem, an attention funnel, all revolving around $PUMP, with revenue streams coming from its token issuance platform and AMM.

However, challenging these social media giants is extremely difficult, which is also why they need large-scale financing. One significant use case of $PUMP is likely to be used to incentivize content creators and users—earning income from posts, receiving rewards from live streaming, and distributing tokens through driving engagement.

However, I guess those early users waiting for the Pumpfun airdrop may ultimately be disappointed.

If they do succeed, it is most likely aiming for an IPO.

Launching a Token Is a Carefully Designed Rug Pull

@hellosuoha

Why do you think Pump Fun launched a token? It is widely known that @a1lon9 and their team are a cs. Was the token launch intended to make everyone rich? Most likely, it was to eventually drain the market liquidity.

As widely known, the biggest cancer of this cycle, especially on @solana, is the @pumpdotfun team, selling all the earned money for USDC and withdrawing it. If you say @a1lon9 launched $PUMP to make everyone money, I don't believe it. So, it is for the final "earn a bit more."

Why was there no launch in January? The earliest rumor about the token launch was in January, and it was supposed to be a public sale in collaboration with a centralized exchange, but then $Trump happened, and the market liquidity was instantly squeezed out.

Then @a1lon9 directly stated that there was no token launch plan. Was there really none? It was originally planned to drain the liquidity, but it was found that the sovereign had drained it, so they had to wait for the next liquidity-thirsty moment.

Why launch now? Mainly because there are too many launch platforms on @solana, all coming to besiege it, especially @SolanaFndn also despises pumpfun.

Look at @bonk_fun + @believeapp + @boopdotfun+ @buidldao_ and other launch platforms. Although the supply @pumpdotfun still tops the list, there is still a bit of concern that it may be surpassed. Plus, the recent market is doing quite well, especially with this @ethereum driving the altcoin pump, making @a1lon9 possibly think that missing out on this coin launch could lead to becoming the next @opensea. Do you still remember how high @opensea's valuation was in 2020-2021? Look at it now and does anyone still care about it? In 24 years, it had $1.4 billion, but now it's probably gone.

Perhaps @a1lon9 also thought of this, so it is still necessary to quickly conduct a token distribution to give all shareholders and oneself an account, after all, missing out may mean missing the opportunity forever. Conduct a major token distribution, completely Fair Launch.

Currently, there are two external claims: one is to raise 10 billion tokens at a 40 billion valuation and then make all tokens liquid; the other is to raise 10 billion tokens at a 50 billion valuation and then make all tokens liquid. The cheapest investor around at the moment is @BiliSquare's friend of a friend who invested 30 million, and then there's @hebi555 mentioning 200 million and 800 million, all of which seem to be fully liquid. It is highly likely that everyone participating will be based on the final valuation round release, and then a 100% TGE, with everyone buying in waiting for a potential double-up?

Possible strategy? Presumably, in the end, there will be talk of sharing rights with token holders, after all, given the current situation, @pumpdotfun could earn 8 years' worth of income in one go after launching the token, so they might not care about a 700 million annual income. It's just a case of "willing participants," anyway; even if they issue 100 billion tokens, there will still be buyers, as it is inherently a "huge casino."

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