The Game Behind Pump.fun Issuing Coin: Who Profits? Who Catches the Falling Knife?

In the past week, the market's focus has been on the token issuance of Pump.fun. This highly anticipated TGE has been brewing since June, continuing to ferment amid various speculations and discussions, until it finally landed on July 12. Although there are many doubts about its $4 billion valuation, the enthusiasm of investors remains high based on actual data. The public offering was sold out in just 12 minutes, and some investors even expressed their dissatisfaction on social media for not being able to participate.

Currently, the performance of Pump.fun is quite satisfactory. After its launch, the token price has steadily increased, and today it even achieved its first token buyback. However, whether this price can be maintained is still a question in the minds of many.

In this bull market, Pump.fun is undoubtedly one of the most successful applications. It has completely transformed the traditional token issuance model and significantly lowered the threshold. You can create a token for just $3, and this enticing mechanism still has a strong appeal even today when the MEME craze has faded.

Mechanically, Pump.fun adopts a fully smart contract pricing model, without pre-sales or private placements, and also sets up an automatic coin listing process. This innovative model has been widely welcomed by the market, making Pump.fun the "money printer" in this round of the market.

Since its launch in January 2024, Pump.fun has shown impressive results. The total number of issued tokens has reached 11.44 million, with more than 22 million active addresses and cumulative revenue nearing $720 million. At the peak of revenue, the daily transaction fees even reached $5.43 million, with a daily revenue peak of up to $15.88 million. It can be said that most of the dividends from this round of the MEME market have been captured by Pump.fun, further promoting the development of the Solana ecosystem.

However, when Pump.fun announced that it would issue its own coin, the market response showed divergence. On one hand, some questioned its $4 billion valuation, believing it could overdraw market liquidity. On the other hand, supporters and institutional investors showed great enthusiasm.

In the end, the public offering of Pump.fun raised $500 million in just 12 minutes. Several large exchanges participated in this public offering, and according to the data, the number of wallet addresses that participated in the presale and completed KYC was 23,959, with the number of addresses that successfully purchased being 10,145, and the average subscription amount was $44,209.

After going live, the performance of the Pump token has also been relatively stable. Although there were some fluctuations in the short term, it then began to rise steadily. As of now, the token price has increased from the fundraising price of 0.004 USD to 0.0066 USD, a rise of 55%.

However, there are also some factors worth noting behind this upward trend. According to on-chain analysis, Pump.fun started to buy back PUMP tokens using the fee income after issuing coins. Although this operation can support the price, it inevitably reminds people of the "left hand to right hand" approach.

Regardless, this issuance event of Pump.fun reflects the current state of the MEME market. Once a hot favorite, MEME projects are facing a collective dilemma, and the myth of attention economy seems to be breaking down. At this critical moment, Pump.fun's performance will become an important indicator of the market's value judgment on attention economy.

So far, project parties, public and private offering participants, as well as short-term bullish investors have all achieved certain gains. However, how long this situation can last and whether the project parties can maintain the coin price in the long term remains uncertain. Some large holders have already chosen to take profits, for instance, a certain whale participated in the public offering through multiple wallets and sold out completely in a short period, making a profit of over 3.4 million dollars.

At the same time, the improvement in the macro market may also have an impact on the MEME market. The continued rise of mainstream tokens like Ethereum could drive quality projects within the related ecosystem. In the long run, with the strengthening of interest rate cut expectations, the altcoin market may still have a chance to welcome a small peak.

However, the MEME market may show a more pronounced polarization. High-quality MEME projects may benefit from sector rotation, while most projects could fall into obscurity due to the withdrawal of liquidity.

Although MEME projects may still exist, they are unlikely to replicate the crazy盛况 of 2024. This field, once compared to the "lipstick economy" and "lottery economy", is undergoing a profound baptism.