By Key Points
- Pump.fun experiments with revenue-sharing to reward token creators
- New token-burning model aims to reduce scams and increase trust
- Platform revenue dropped 95% despite $600M in total earnings
- Meme coin market cap plunged from $125B to $54B in months
As the meme coin market faces a dramatic downturn, Pump.fun is turning the tide with a bold move—revenue-sharing for token creators.
In a recent conversation with Bankless, Co-founder Alon Cohen unveiled how the viral token-launching platform plans to reshape the meme coin economy by rewarding creators and filtering out low-effort, scammy tokens.
The timing couldn’t be more critical. Meme coins, which dominated headlines just months ago, are now reeling. From a $125 billion peak in December 2024, the market plunged to $54 billion by early March 2025—a staggering 56.8% drop. The fall echoes broader market uncertainties seen in recent events, like the $1M loss from a Hyperliquid Jelly trader after a high-profile exploit (read more).
Pump.fun Fees Data. Source: Dune – Techtoken
Even Pump.fun wasn’t spared, reporting a 95% drop in platform revenue. But instead of retreating, the team is leaning into innovation.
This revenue-sharing model is expected to push creators toward more thoughtful, community-driven projects—a big step in a space often criticized for pump-and-dump behavior.
Despite the decline, Pump.fun’s scale is massive. It has launched over 8.8 million tokens, representing more than 61% of all tokens on Solana. That alone puts it at the center of the meme coin movement.
And if that wasn’t impressive enough, the platform has generated $600 million in total revenue, largely due to its clever use of a bonding curve model—a pricing mechanism where token prices increase as demand grows.
Bonding curves, token burns, and a meme-first mission
At its core, Pump.fun isn’t just a meme coin factory—it’s an experiment in crypto culture. The site borrows from 4Chan’s raw, chaotic style, speaking directly to the meme generation. It’s intentionally unpolished, simple, and addictive.
our goal from day 1 was to build a product that could escape the crypto bubble and capture the attention of millions of non-crypto natives
PumpSwap is a crucial step that will help grow the ecosystem through a more accessible, rewarding, and sustainable mechanism
here’s how 🧵 https://t.co/fwlbvkrpAv
— alon (@a1lon9) March 20, 2025
Still, Pump.fun understands the risks of its rapid growth. Meme coins are notorious for scams and rug pulls, often launched by anonymous devs looking to cash out fast. To combat this, the platform implemented a token-burning mechanism and low, transparent fees—a direct effort to build trust and weed out bad actors.
These moves reflect a broader trend in the crypto space, where platforms are under increasing pressure to regulate themselves. We’ve already seen South Korea block 17 foreign exchanges in a bid to clean up its crypto market (details here).
Similarly, Binance has ramped up wallet activity, sparking a 24x volume surge amid ongoing efforts to bolster credibility (explore this). Even its $38M market maker controversy triggered a major internal crackdown (read about it).
In that context, Pump.fun’s steps toward transparency and accountability look less like marketing and more like survival.
PumpSwap launches amid rumors of rivalry with Raydium
Pump.fun recently launched PumpSwap, a feature that allows users to trade their meme tokens more easily within the ecosystem. The move triggered speculation that Pump.fun might be positioning itself as a competitor to Raydium, Solana’s popular decentralized exchange.
But Alon quickly shut down the rumors.
“We’re not trying to replace Raydium. We’re here to make token creation more accessible, more rewarding, and more fun,” he said
PumpSwap is seen as a tool to improve user experience, not a bid for DEX dominance. It simplifies the path from token creation to token usage—making it easier for creators to launch, promote, and swap their tokens without leaving the Pump.fun ecosystem.
This tighter loop could be a game-changer, especially as users demand more seamless, integrated experiences. It’s a step toward long-term ecosystem sustainability, not just viral hype.
While meme coins face increasing scrutiny, Alon remains optimistic. He believes they still have a role—but only if they evolve.
LIVE NOW – The Next Chapter for https://t.co/Ufk15b7h2y with Co-Founder Alon@a1lon9, co-founder of @pumpdotfun, joins us to discuss the meteoric rise of their token launchpad platform, the controversial yet impactful role of memecoins in crypto, and the vision behind their… pic.twitter.com/T1BPT1SgDJ
— Bankless (@BanklessHQ) March 25, 2025
His view aligns with wider industry sentiment. As seen in Binance CEO CZ’s latest messaging experiment, where he charged 125 BNB per message to reduce spam and signal value (full story here), the future of crypto will reward utility, trust, and engagement, not just hype.
Pump.fun’s bold move to share revenue and clean up its ecosystem might be exactly what the meme coin market needs to survive—and thrive.
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