The most profitable application in the crypto circle starts to slack off

By: Cookie

From competing head-on with bonk.fun to completing one of the largest ICOs in cryptocurrency history, Pump.fun hasn't been as wildly profitable this year as it was last year—but it's still had a fairly good run. To date, Pump.fun has spent nearly 1 million SOL (approximately $188 million) in fee revenue to repurchase 12.227% of the total $PUMP supply.

Yet despite continuous and substantial buybacks, $PUMP’s price has shown no signs of recovery and continues to fall. The actions of Pump.fun and its co-founder alon have increasingly drawn market discontent. Two days ago, Mario Nawfal, a major influencer on X with over 2.6 million followers, publicly criticized Pump.fun from his secondary account:

"Even if Pump.fun is a for-profit company, their behavior is utterly baffling. Solana has been struggling, yet they’ve sold off billions of dollars worth of SOL. They completed the $PUMP ICO months ago and promised an airdrop, but so far nothing has materialized, nor have they reinvested anything back into the ecosystem. Setting aside any moral obligation to do good, purely from a business perspective—how can they expect sustained growth while neglecting the very ecosystem that enabled their success?"

This may be the most significant public criticism of Pump.fun from a top-tier influencer we've seen so far. Just hours after this tweet, Pump.fun announced $10,000 community grants for six meme coins within its ecosystem—an act widely perceived as pouring gasoline on the fire, mocked mercilessly by the community.

Under this tweet, comments like these quickly piled up:

"F*** you."

"This is f****** hilarious."

"You guys make so much money every day, and you’re giving just $10,000 to these meme coins that have been grinding hard in your ecosystem? What can $10,000 even do?"

In August, when Pump.fun faced aggressive competition from bonk.fun, it launched the Glass Full Foundation, spending about $1.7 million to purchase several high-performing meme coins within its own ecosystem. But since then, Pump.fun has not made any further real financial support for meme coins in its ecosystem. Roughly two weeks ago, $neet—the "last survivor" in the Glass Full Foundation portfolio—dropped below Pump.fun's acquisition price, meaning all holdings in the foundation are now underwater, with total losses reaching approximately $1.37 million.

Players who firmly supported Pump.fun during its battle with bonk.fun, and those who hoped Pump.fun would take responsibility for revitalizing the meme market, are deeply disappointed—perhaps as disappointed as one could possibly be. They wanted Pump.fun to properly nurture its ecosystem, rather than jumping impulsively into CCM (live token launches), then ICM, leaving behind a trail of chaos and failure.

The massive buybacks contrast sharply with the stagnant and declining $PUMP price, which, amid growing player frustration and disillusionment, has begun drawing increasing skepticism.

"How do you explain that $PUMP has bought back over 10% of supply yet is still trading below IPO price?"

Meanwhile, under these circumstances, both the official Pump.fun Twitter account and co-founder alon’s personal account fell into an inexplicable silence lasting around ten days—posting not a single tweet. Even the previous major update, 'Mayhem Mode,' wasn’t mentioned at all by the official Pump.fun account.

Incidentally, 'Mayhem Mode' was another update heavily criticized by users. Amid a depressed Solana meme market, lowering the graduation threshold and using fees from tokens in Mayhem Mode to randomly buy more of those same tokens was seen as Pump.fun engaging in short-term extraction—draining the ecosystem dry.

This irrational silence prompted even the AI aixbt to lash out at Pump.fun:

"Pump.fun collected $300 million in fees, yet the token graduation rate is now only 0.7%. There are 12,610 launches per day, with only 98 successes. The platform profits from 99.3% of failed token launches. The team vanished suddenly 13 days ago, right after the highest-volume week in its history. Allegedly their buybacks are just self-dealing; this product itself is a value-extraction machine."

Shortly afterward, a tweet from Lookonchain sparked rumors across the market that "Pump.fun has rug-pulled":

"Looks like Pump.fun has cashed out at least $436.5 million since October 15"

This finally jolted Pump.fun back to life. Co-founder Sapijiju tweeted, claiming Lookonchain’s statement was entirely false—Pump.fun did not cash out any funds, but merely moved capital raised during the ICO to different wallets so the company could use it for business investments.

This explanation clearly rang hollow. Pump.fun’s only disclosed acquisitions so far are Kolscan and Padre—Kolscan being a tool that tracks KOL trading performance, and Padre a trading terminal. When the Padre acquisition was announced, Pump.fun simultaneously declared that the Padre token would no longer be used on its platform, with no further plans disclosed.

Imagine a Web2 company getting acquired—shareholders celebrate for two minutes, only to be told their shares are now worthless. That night’s cold-blooded tragedy unfolded exactly like this. Those who didn’t read through the entire tweet thread ended up stranded at the peak, while original $PADRE holders were left with nowhere to turn.

Holding a project’s token -> Finally seeing it acquired by a major industry player -> Price doubles, feeling great -> Suddenly learning the acquirer says the token is obsolete with no future roadmap -> Foot gets chopped off

In the end, while the “Pump.fun rug pull” rumor currently lacks solid evidence and Pump.fun has responded, it reflects a boiling point of market dissatisfaction. If Pump.fun is merely a calculating enterprise, but in its calculations completely disregards human sentiment, then it cannot be considered a truly intelligent or strategic operator.

Of course, it’s also possible they’ve simply earned enough and no longer care. After all, the airdrop was said to be “coming soon” in a July 9 tweet—yet to this day, there’s no sign of “soon.” Alon claimed Q4 would be a glorious quarter, but instead it’s been quiet and disastrous. Opaque communication and disrespectful treatment of the community, coupled with laughable community incentives, have steadily driven user resentment higher and higher.

So how can the trenches learn to love you, Pump.fun?