Pump.fun coin issuance: opportunity or harvest?

Jessy, Golden Finance

On July 12, Pump fun's token Pump will be publicly sold. This public sale is in cooperation with many second-tier institutions such as Kucoin, Bitgat, Mexc, etc.

PUMP has a total issuance of 1 trillion pieces, 33% of which are issued by ICO, and the issue price is 0.004U. Among them, $600 million was raised publicly on the exchange, and $700 million of tokens were sold to institutions in a private placement.

The sale of this token just happened to catch up with the improvement of the market. Bitcoin has once again broken through a new high, and the overall liquidity of the currency circle has slowly recovered. Regarding Pump.fun's coin issuance, most people in the industry are not optimistic, because with the demise of the Meme market, Pump.fun's revenue has also dropped significantly. This coin issuance is also considered to be another harvesting behavior while the market liquidity has recovered.

IOSG founding partner Jocy posted on social media that this Pump.fun public offering is more like a highly speculative gamble with participants as exit liquidity.

For retail investors, is PUMP token worth buying? 33% ICO, team holds nearly 40% of the tokens

The maximum supply of PUMP tokens is 1 trillion, and 33% of the distribution ratio is used for ICO (18% private placement + 15% public offering), 24% for the community and ecology, 20% for the team, and 13% for existing investors. The private and public offering prices are the same, 0.004U, and the tokens issued by the ICO are fully unlocked on the first day of trading on July 12, while the lock-up period for the team and investor tokens is unknown. Residents of the United States and the United Kingdom cannot participate in this ICO.

The token distribution plan has also been widely criticized in the community, and cryptocurrency researcher Rex bluntly stated that its token economics is "exploitative." He pointed out that the team allocated more than 40% of the token supply (20% for the team + 13% for existing investors + 2% for the foundation + 2.4% for the ecosystem fund ≈ 37.4%, plus possible control rights of some community/eco-funds) to itself and related parties, and the platform's revenue of more than $750 million in the past year largely depends on the community's contribution.

And the unlocking rules are also not transparent to community members. The public and private tokens, which account for 33% of the total, were fully unlocked on the first day, but the token lock-up terms of the team and investors were not disclosed, which poses a risk of "internal arbitrage" - using retail funds to support the market and then sell it.

IOSG founding partner Jocy said that he believes that the Pump.fun team has neither the intention nor the ability to "pull the market" or "control the market". They have already gained huge wealth through handling fees, and this ICO is more like the final "value realization" (Exit Liquidity).

The project has no technical barriers, and its market share has been overtaken

The Pump.fun team has indeed made a lot of money from the fees.

This Meme launch platform on the Solana chain was established in 2024. According to DeFiLlama data, its peak trading volume and revenue occurred in January 2025. At present, both trading volume and fee revenue have dropped sharply. According to the post of the founding partner of IOSG Ventures on X, Pump.fun's daily revenue has also plummeted by more than 92% to about $500,000 after reaching a peak of more than $7 million on January 23, 2025.  

Since its establishment in January 2024, its quarterly revenue is as follows:

With the temporary extinguishing of the Meme narrative, Pump.fun is also seeking transformation. The team recently disclosed two strategic adjustments, expanding the current team of less than 20 people to 70 people, covering professional fields such as engineering, compliance, and legal affairs, and testing its own AMM to try to build a closed trading loop.

The above actions also confirm that the Pump.fun team has also found that as a Meme launch platform, it actually has no technical moat. At present, its market share has been surpassed by LetsBonk, another platform on Solana.

All of the above shows that Pump.fun is not a unicorn Meme launch platform. Without a technical moat, it is also easy to be replaced.

Although Bitcoin has broken through a new high, it has indeed brought a new short-term liquidity spillover effect, and Meme coins will also have a phased recovery. However, there are too many "zero return after issuing tokens" projects on Pump.fun, and the user stickiness is actually very poor. In addition, compared with the impression that its founding team has made a lot of money, the market may not buy into the PUMP token.

And its token institutions are not friendly to retail investors, the project's online valuation is not low, and the meme popularity is unlikely to return to its peak, etc., all of which prove that the project may not have long-term investment value.