$436M in Stablecoins Leaves Pump.fun Wallets Following October’s Record Market Crash

Pump.fun has secretly transferred more than $436 million worth of USDC to cryptocurrency exchange Kraken following a market meltdown that has resulted in a record $19 billion market crash, throttling retail speculation and sharply reducing activity across memecoin ecosystems.

The market crash has also caused Pump.fun’s revenue to fall by more than 50%, dropping from $58.9 in September to 27.3 million in November, according to DefiLlama. The slowdown follows months of waning retail appetite, which analysts say the October crash merely accelerated.

Onchain analyst EmberCN noted that the $436 million in USDC likely originated from institutional private placements of the $PUMP token last June at a price of $0.004, suggesting the movement may represent withdrawals rather than direct market sales.

Despite this, the sheer scale of the transfers has rattled investors, who view large treasury actions as possible precursors to additional selling. Social sentiment weakened further after multiple reports throughout 2024 and 2025 of Pump.fun-associated wallets distributing substantial amounts of tokens during downturns.

Nicolai Sondergaard, research analyst at Nansen, revealed that retail traders have grown “increasingly fatigued” after months of losses, with the October crash serving as the breaking point.

“Retail got burned repeatedly over the past few months, so the drop-off we’re seeing now is a continuation of that. This also isn’t the first time we’ve seen reports of large sell-offs from Pump.fun, so it wouldn’t be surprising if they continued selling from their holdings.”

Crypto investor SK joked in an X post that Pump.fun was “moving like a full-time liquidation machine while everyone else is out here ‘buying dips’ that never stop dipping.”

Memecoin Slowdown Signals a Shift in Speculative Appetite as Pump.fun Faces a New Market Landscape

Pump.fun still retains substantial reserves, however. Onchain data from Arkham shows the project’s primary wallet holding approximately $855 million in stablecoins and around $211 million in Solana (SOL) at the time of reporting.

Memecoin trading — the core driver of Pump.fun’s explosive growth throughout 2025 — had been cooling even before the October crash. But the downturn “accelerated” the slowdown, according to analysts, as speculative traders pulled back across Solana and Ethereum ecosystems.

The revenue slump and large stablecoin transfers raise broader questions about the sustainability of memecoin launchpads during periods of reduced liquidity. With retail participation sharply contracting and markets still stabilizing post-crash, Pump.fun’s treasury movements highlight the vulnerability of platforms heavily reliant on speculative surges.

While Pump.fun remains one of the largest liquidity aggregators in the sector, its recent actions underscore a shifting dynamic: memecoin enthusiasm is fading, risk appetite is shrinking, and treasury transparency is becoming a growing concern among investors already shaken by volatility.

As the memecoin cycle cools, Pump.fun’s $436 million cash-out stands as one of the clearest signs yet that the speculative era powering its meteoric rise may be entering a reset phase.