If you’ve ever thought meme coins were just a passing trend, think again. Pump.fun, the launchpad that powers meme coin mania, has generated a mind-blowing $774 million in less than two years. Yes, you read that right, nearly a billion dollars in revenue. And it all started with a few crypto degens looking to make token creation easy. They sure made their mark, didn’t they?
But here’s the twist: Is this big business sustainable? The platform recently raised $600 million in an ICO (hello, 2017 flashbacks) and created almost 12 million tokens for degens to buy and sell. But while it reached a peak in January 2024, when it made over $136 million in one month, interest has dropped dramatically. Last month? Just $26 million. A whopping 80% decline. Is the meme coin hype fading, or is it just a rough patch?
Can Meme Coin Madness Keep Rolling?
Pump.fun started out as a simple idea between three crypto enthusiasts who wanted to make it easy for anyone to create a token. Fast forward 18 months, and they've got over 70 employees and a platform that’s now considered one of the fastest-growing apps in crypto history. Not bad for a project that started with laptops and a WeWork office, right?
The ICO raised $600 million in 12 minutes, pushing its PUMP token to the top 65 cryptocurrencies by market cap. But lately, the token’s been slumping, down 20% in just a week, and the platform's token-creation days have dropped from 70,000 a day to a mere 10,000 to 15,000. Competition from LetsBonk, another meme coin launchpad, has chipped away at Pump.fun's market share. It’s clear that the meme coin market is shifting, but the question remains: Can Pump.fun keep up?
Cohen, the founder of Pump.fun, still believes in the meme coin model. After all, meme coins are part of the 1% that truly matter in this market. But as bots flood the platform, creating an underground economy of rug-pull tools and sniping bots, trader interest has started to wane. The platform's "graduation rate" (the rate at which tokens hit the $66,000 market cap to be tradable) has fallen dramatically. Maybe it's not all fun and games after all?
As the meme coin market evolves, it seems the race is on for the next big thing. While Pump.fun made a splash, its future now rests on how well it can handle the rise of competitors and the changing tastes of the crypto community. With more bots than real traders, the market’s getting crowded, and not in a good way. Will Pump.fun remain on top, or will it fade into the meme coin history books? Only time will tell!
Kristian Koch
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