A website on the Solana blockchain which allows anyone to instantly create and launch meme coins has been at the center of controversy in recent weeks, after its livestream feature was used to broadcast simulated violence, self-harm, sexual content, and even a purported suicide which later turned out to be fake.

Pump.fun emerged as one of the most popular blockchain apps on Solana in the past year thanks to its ability to let people with no coding experience create their own meme coins.

The site has generated over $220 million in fees and revenue since launching in March 2024, yet this apparent success may not be as positive as it seems.

Pump.fun Livestream Stokes Controversy

An on-site feature of Pump.fun allowed meme coin creators to broadcast embedded livestreams to promote and sell their coins. 

That was until earlier this week when the livestream feature was shut down following an apparent suicide attempt and a host of controversial broadcasts.

Reports emerged of users engaging in dangerous behaviour in an attempt to promote their meme coins, including threats of self-harm, violence, and explicit sexual acts. One couple even pledged to punch their toddler in the face every four minutes until viewers bought into their token and increased its value.

The final straw was a fake suicide attempt on Nov. 25, when a man appear to hang himself with a noose, prompting a swift shutdown of the livestream feature by the site’s creators. 

“Our platform has experienced unprecedented growth recently, with the daily number of live streams increasing by over 100x in under a week,” wrote the Pump.fun team in a blog post on Monday.

Despite doubling the amount of moderators on the site and making their best efforts to police content, the team were left with no choice but to halt the livestream feature after a host of complaints by the site’s users.

The team wrote:

However, to ensure the absolute safety of our users, we will be pausing the live streaming functionality on the site for an indefinite time period until the moderation infrastructure is ready to deal with the heightened levels of activity.

Pump.fun’s Success in 2024 Not So Clear Cut

In less than a year since the site’s launch, Pump.fun had facilitated over a million meme coin launches, and by August the site accounted for over 67% of daily token creations on the Solana blockchain.

The site’s ability to allow anyone to create meme coins regardless of technical knowledge appeared to align with the cryptocurrency space’s core values of autonomy, decentralization and accessibility, opening up token creation to the wider public.

However, Pump.fun’s domination of activity on Solana may not be as positive as first thought.

According to a report by Cointelegraph, Pump.fun now drives 62% of all DEX trading activity on Solana, leading to some skepticism over whether this is the best use of the Solana network. 

In response to the statistic posted by Cointelegraph, one X user, Anson Zeall (@0xa8l), wrote: “Making SOL a full on pump and dump platform of [meme coins].”

Other users pointed out that most of the revenue generated by Pump.fun was going straight to the founders’ pockets, while user Solid Launch (@solid_launch) pointed out the apparent imbalance between hype and real applicability, writing: 

Sounds like the market’s getting fueled by more hype than substance. Guess the real question is—when’s the crash coming?

User @0xJarod emphasized this point, writing: “And 99% of the activity on http://pump.fun are pump & dump scams. It has become such a net negative in the web3 ecosystem. This is not the kind of adoption I want to see.

While the core functions of Pump.fun are still operational, the media controversy and subsequent shutdown of its livestream feature resulted in a drop in revenue between Nov. 24-25, as daily fee generation dropped from $5.3 million to $3.7 million, as per data from DeFiLlama, marking a 30% reduction.

With no sign of the site being closed down in the near future, cryptocurrency enthusiasts are now calling for increased regulation of the website in order to ensure incidents like Monday’s simulated suicide attempt don’t happen again.

The Need for Regulation of Pump.fun

Whether the site’s livestream feature will be coming back any time soon is still up in the air. In their blog post, the Pump.fun team pledged to increase the potency and visibility of the site’s rules and guidelines in an attempt curb the rise of illegal content, writing:

Moving forward, we will be significantly more transparent about rules and regulations of using the site by publishing guidelines. We will also provide creators and users greater visibility into individual moderation decisions to ensure everyone understands the process and outcomes.

How dedicated the team is to actively tackling the problem remains to be seen, however several safeguarding policies could potentially be implemented to increase user safety and clean up the site’s image.

While the team has claimed to double the amount of moderators on the site, a robust system of mandatory content moderation — similar in extent to major social media sites like X and Reddit — could be implemented to prevent the dissemination of harmful and illegal content.

At present, anyone can use the site to create meme coins without logging their real-world identity, potentially leaving the site open to abuse by scammers, fraudsters and bot accounts.

By implementing KYC (know your customer) procedures on the site, the Pump.fun team would be able to identify its users, and hold them accountable for flagrant misuse of the platform. 

Clear legal frameworks could also be introduced that hold the site responsible for any illegal content, which would force the team to take a stronger approach to policing illicit content and hopefully deter any future negligence.

Also, while it may be difficult to impose on a decentralized ecosystem, investor safeguards could be introduced which protect investors against scam tokens and rug-pulls, thus enhancing trust in the platform in general.

66% Revenue Drop

The controversy surrounding Pump.fun has taken a significant toll on its financial performance, with the platform's weekly revenue dropping 66% in the aftermath of its livestream shutdown. According to DeFiLlama, Pump.fun generated $33.83 million in revenue from Nov. 18–24, a peak representing a 60% week-over-week increase and a staggering 400% growth compared to early November. However, following the disabling of its livestream feature on Nov. 25, weekly revenue plummeted to $11.31 million, reversing the month’s upward trend.

Despite the measures, legal and regulatory scrutiny looms over the platform. Experts like Yuriy Brisov have called the situation grounds for criminal investigation, while others, such as Mikko Ohtamaa, predict either immediate shutdowns or delayed regulatory actions.

The Future of Pump.fun

With the livestream feature now halted and with the team currently revising its rules and guidelines, time will tell how much Pump.fun can be rehabilitated.

While the proposed safeguarding measures noted above would go some way to making the platform safer for the end-user, these still may be difficult to implement to any meaningful extent.

Sites like Pump.fun, which are hosted on open, permissionless blockchains like Solana, are built around principles of decentralization, trustlessness, and autonomy. The idea of imposing an overarching regulatory framework may be at odds with the site’s foundational tenets.

This is a microcosm of one of the core issues that has plagued the cryptocurrency and blockchain space since its inception, namely — how do you police a fully open, decentralized and trustless ecosystem?

The Pump.fun team will be watched closely in the coming weeks to see whether the site can truly be reformed, and whether the wild west of meme coin creation will continue.

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