Bankless interviews the co-founder of PumpFun: How is a super money suction machine built? Are crypto tobacco companies a poison for the industry
edits | Wu talks about blockchain
On the “Bankless” podcast, the host andSolanaThe Memecoin launch platform onPump.FunCo-founder Alon started an in-depth conversation about how the project rapidly rose, sparked huge controversy, and generated more than $600 million in revenue in just one year. PumpFun focuses on the concept of “zero threshold token creation”. Users can launch their own coins without capital. During peak periods, they launched more than 60,000 tokens every day, with a cumulative circulation of about 9 million. The business model that charges 1% fees through transactions makes it one of the few projects in the Web3 field to achieve large-scale revenue.
Despite this, PumpFun has also been criticized for fueling the speculative culture of the industry, undermining the credibility of the crypto market, and has even been compared to a “crypto tobacco company.” Faced with questions, Alon emphasized that Memecoin is essentially a natural product of cryptography. The problem is not the hype, but rather the industry's lack of response to user interest for a long time. To this end, PumpFun launched the decentralized trading platform PumpSwap and plans to introduce a profit sharing mechanism for creators in an attempt to transform Memecoin from a pure speculative tool to a creative economy carrier with long-term value. At the same time, the team is also exploring a new model of “content+social+finance” to drive Memecoin's evolution towards a more sustainable and diverse direction.
The text translation was done by GPT and there may be errors, please listen to the podcast for the full story:
https://x.com/BanklessHQ/status/1904518172306186288
PumpFun's starting point: From an NFT derivative to a low-threshold source of inspiration for creating tokens
David: Now I'm really excited to introduce you to today's guest — Alon, co-founder of PumpFun. There's probably no need to introduce the PumpFun platform in particular now; it's a Memecoin launch platform on Solana. At its peak, PumpFun was able to launch more than 60,000 new tokens every day. Since its launch in January 2024, the total number of listed tokens has reached about 9 million, and the number of active addresses has reached 15 million. The platform uses the Bonding Curve fee model, which charges 1% on all transactions. This mechanism has generated revenue of up to $600 million for the PumpFun team and its investors, making it one of the most successful applications in the crypto sector recently.
Alon: Thanks for the invitation, David. It's a great opportunity for me to talk about PumpFun, Memecoin, and whatever you want to discuss, especially for an audience like you.
David: As I mentioned earlier, you should already be familiar with PumpFun. By the way, is it “PumpDotFun” or “PumpFun”?
Alon: I've been struggling with this myself. At first, I preferred “Pump.Fun,” but users prefer “PumpDotFun,” and recently I've been using “PumpFun.”
David: OK, then “PumpFun.” Maybe you could start by briefly explaining the background of you and your team before starting this project, and how the idea first came about.
Alon: Okay. My two co-founders and I have been in the industry for quite some time.
We've done a few different projects before. I myself have been deeply involved in a project called NFT Perp, an NFT derivatives trading platform deployed on Arbitrum. We were mostly on the DeFi circuit back then, and that stage was exciting. We can clearly feel that there is something in it, and there is a real product market fit. When it comes to NFT Perp specifically, what we're seeing is the potential for collectibles trading.
However, I experiencedTerraLuna andFTXAfter the crash, we discovered that the entire market began to decline, and the long-term value of NFTs was not as guaranteed as we had originally thought. So we started to want to try out some new directions. So I quit my original role and started doing some experiments with the team.
At that stage, the trading experience was terrible — whether AMM or DEX. You'll run into problems with liquidity being taken away from LPs, and even buy “honeypot” projects (malicious tokens that directly empty your wallet). This is a really bad user experience.
But in the Ethereum ecosystem, I was particularly impressed by one project, which isFRIEND.tech. I really like that idea. Although its final direction may be debatable, such as whether the operation went wrong, etc., I really like the idea of starting a token community without having to invest capital in advance.
You don't need to commit funds to create a coin from the beginning; as long as the market responds positively enough, as long as there is enough capital or attention to come in, you can activate the project. This logic of “market verification first, capital injection later” gave us great inspiration.
From messy pre-sales to standardized tools: How PumpFun took off quickly
David: It reminds me of the Memecoin era before PumpFun, and the most typical example is probably the Slerf incident. At the time, a Solana developer publicly stated that he was going to send a Memecoin for a pre-sale, but there was no platform like PumpFun at the time. Therefore, users can only transfer money to this “trustworthy” individual, then issue coins, add them to the LP pool, and then launch the transaction.
But later, Slerf accidentally burned the LP Token because he didn't know how to operate it. He also posted a very famous tweet, probably: “Brothers, I think I accidentally burned my LP, sorry...” That incident was very embarrassing and representative, reflecting how chaotic and unstandardized the Memecoin field was at the time.
Then PumpFun came along, providing a “decentralized but standardized” Memecoin launch platform. There is no need to trust a KOL or developer; anyone can directly issue coins on pump.fun. The situation was completely different after that. So after PumpFun officially launched in January 2024, will it be hot right away? When did you realize this thing might actually get bigger?
Alon: We actually had a lot of confidence in this idea even before the product went live. Unlike the products we made before, this time we are living deeply in this ecosystem, and we fully understand the significance of lowering the issuance threshold by 1000 times.
We haven't paid for any influencers or KOL promotions. In fact, we only had $100,000 on hand at the time, and we had no budget at all to carry out these promotional activities. Therefore, in the beginning, we simply relied on the product itself to spread and attract users. There was no such thing as market trading, and there was no driving force behind it.
PumpFun's Role in the Industry: Driving Memecoin Mainstreaming or Intensifying Market Speculation?
David: Let's fast forward to this point in time — March 2025. I think PumpFun's explosive trajectory is still visible. The entire Memecoin circuit has indeed brought a lot of pain to the crypto industry in the past year. Just as “monkey JPEG” became an everyday term in 2021, Memecoin is now part of popular perception. The explosion of some of the best-known Memecoin projects has also brought the overall reputation of the crypto industry to a new low, probably the lowest point since the FTX incident. Because of the structural and systematic “harvesting” behavior of such projects, it gives people the feeling that the industry is not serious and lacks legitimacy.
Of course, I'm not saying PumpFun created Memecoin; this concept dates back to the Dogecoin era. However, PumpFun did push Memecoin from a niche culture in the crypto field to the point where it is almost a mainstream use of crypto today. What do you think of PumpFun's role in this historical process?
Alon: I'm glad you asked that. I do agree that PumpFun played a key role in expanding the Memecoin ecosystem. Its significance is to make it easier for more people to participate in this market and establish a certain level of basic security, so that ordinary users can operate and trade with confidence.
But at the end of the day, I don't think the problem with Memecoin was caused by us. Cryptocurrency has been around for over 15 years, and the real feeling in many people's minds is that the industry hasn't brought much useful stuff. People trade Memecoin not because they love funny graphics, but because the industry hasn't come up with really attractive user apps. I totally disagree with the statement “PumpFun killed the building season (building season).”
If you think about L2 or L1 projects that have been launched in the past few years, if they haven't received even a little bit of user or product market fit (PMF), but the tokens can be traded at a market value of several billion US dollars and still talk about the “future of finance” at the conference, users will of course be angry — especially after they have lost a lot of money. This kind of thing is inherently an inevitable reaction of the market without results for a long time.
Now is the time for results. Those projects that actually produce results have actually been verified by users and the market. PumpFun is an example — we didn't build infrastructure, we just made a product, then users naturally came, and incidentally, infrastructure such as Solana was actually tested and continuously optimized.
I think this proves something: the actual demand for altcoins and products in the market is far greater than we thought. Whether for speculative or non-speculative use, as long as it provides real “use value,” people will come. But the problem is that for a long time, the industry has almost only built “tools”, and few people actually “apply” them. I think what we need now is not more infrastructure developers, but 10 times more application developers. Many industry leaders have been saying this a long time ago; PumpFun is a prime example.
How to make Memecoin less “reaping”? PumpSwap and Incentive System Reform Experiments
David: It reminds me of a “cycle template” for the crypto industry. Look, how did the 2017 ICO frenzy start? That's because the first few projects were successful, such as Ethereum and Augur's ICO, which were very formal, which gave confidence to the market. Then the entire industry began to copy, stack, and eventually lead to flooding, bubbles, and scams.
DeFi Summer is similar, starting withCompoundGovernance tokens were issued, then a chain reaction rolled all the way to Food Farm, which has an annualized revenue of 10,000%. The same goes for NFTs. The first project was very pure and later turned into a bunch of air JPGs. Memecoin's trajectory seems to be the same: it was fair and creative at first, but eventually evolved into an extremely “pumping” system.
So I'm curious, if you look back at PumpFun's early designs, do you think there are any mechanisms you could have set up better to prevent this “crazy spread” from eventually turning into “crazy harvesting”? Or do you think it's actually out of control?
Alon: Yes, there are a few things I did reflect on. At the end of the day, the market is an extremely powerful system. When the market is in extreme frenzy, some things are really hard for you to control.
But I also agree that the mechanism can indeed be improved. This is one of the reasons we recently launched PumpSwap. We want to optimize user behavior through a new trading system, especially to improve the incentive mechanism between token creators and token holders.
Next, we will launch the Creator Revenue Sharing feature (Creator Revenue Sharing), which will allow creators to share commission revenue from the trading volume of their tokens on PumpSwap. In this way, creators will be more motivated to run the project for a long time rather than selling their coins as soon as they go online as before. This is a more sustainable path.
To be honest, I also observed a lot of “royalty mechanisms” during the NFT wave, but the tax was so severe at the time that it made everyone find ways to bypass it. I think there is a reasonable middle ground, which is why we are launching PumpSwap just to find a more reasonable mechanism.
You see, the essence of Crypto is: any token may initially be pure or even fun, but once users want to test the limits of this system, it's easy to lose its flavor.
The Libra incident, for example, is a prime example: it's crazy. Actually, this is exactly what PumpFun is trying to solve. If you want to send a Memecoin, do you actually need to find a dealer or find an intermediary? This is ridiculous. Our original intention was to remove these unnecessary middlemen.
If Memecoin is really about to enter a new phase, then the mechanism will have to be updated, and we are fully willing to participate. We don't want to do a blockbuster project that dies after a year or two, but rather a platform that can actually stay.
So the first question I wake up to every day is: How can we make this product more sustainable today? How do we ensure that users actually feel the value after using it? This is what we want to achieve.
PumpFun's “4chan Style” Aesthetic Choice: Cultural Belonging or a Source of Controversies?
David: At first, I was actually a bit resistant to Memecoins, mainly because I thought they were “empty”, like a cartoon for hype, and they didn't intend to bring any real value growth or economic output. But over time, my opinion changed. I now believe that if Memecoin can be embedded with a reasonable incentive mechanism, it can move towards a more sustainable development path. This is also one of the core elements of PumpSwap that we're going to talk about today.
I think one of the most important powers of Crypto is that it allows ordinary people to actually create financial assets for the first time. Before Bitcoin, this right almost only belonged to a country or large agency. The existence of PumpFun is like the end of this trend — 9 million tokens and 9 million financial assets will be launched in 2024 alone. But it also raises a new question: How can we turn these idle financial assets into sustainable projects?
On a cultural level, PumpFun looks and feels like a platform full of 4chan's energy. How did you first consider using this aesthetic style? Was this a deliberate choice?
Alon: Yes, of course. From the beginning, we clearly chose this style when building the product.
Many of the most influential Memecoins in history first originated from forums such as 4chan, especially in the Ethereum ecosystem. There are quite a few users who really resonate with this, so we've kept this style. Of course, with product iteration, we have made many improvements in user experience, interface optimization, etc.
But we've always believed it's important to preserve the “roots” of this culture. It represents the spirit that Memecoin originated from, and it is this “culturally rich” characteristic that distinguishes PumpFun from projects that seem “soulless.” We hope to preserve this unique culture even if we actually have tens of millions of active users every day in the future. Because if we lose it, PumpFun will just become another Web2 product, and we don't want to get to that point.
David: But I think it's worth pointing out that some people might question the statement “4chan is culture.” Many people see 4chan as a shady corner of the internet, which is full of negative acts such as racism and harassment. Although it cannot be generalized, it is indeed a “lawless” place. And now the entire crypto industry is increasingly aware that culture is shaped from top to bottom — both Ethereum and Solana. The same goes for PumpFun, where the style of the platform is closely related to user behavior. So if we want Memecoin to have a more sustainable, fairer, and more positive future, maybe the “4chan brand image” itself is a matter of reflection. Do you accept this point of view?
Alon: I agree with this basic logic. I don't think our visual and cultural design will directly prevent us from moving towards sustainability, but I don't deny that this topic is worth discussing in depth.
Compared to design style, I think the more important issue is “content review.” In fact, many people, especially in the Ethereum community, are biased against PumpFun because they saw some events in our live streaming feature last November.
I want to clarify that from day one, our platform has had a review mechanism. We launched the live streaming feature in June 2024. At first, we only saw many users live streaming their own coins on third-party live streaming platforms. We thought this behavior was very interesting and natural, so we simply built in a tool that allows creators to broadcast directly on the platform.
However, in October and November, market sentiment exploded, and the entire ecosystem became very crazy. For example, Andrew Tate participated in the live broadcast, Solana had an issue, and PumpFun itself went down once. All of these things happened at the same time, and the crypto market itself was a madhouse.
One thing I really regret — we haven't been transparent enough to disclose our review criteria. Actually, we've been doing it all the time, but the outside world doesn't know. Many people still think that PumpFun is a completely uncensored platform, which is just ridiculous. We actually set up an audit system a long time ago, and because it works so well, many people haven't had problems for a long time. But then there was an explosion of traffic, and we were also a bit unable to keep up; indeed, there was an error.
We now realize that the “what is possible and what is not” rules should indeed be made more clear and open. When you say “culture comes from above,” I agree completely; we must also be responsible for the culture our platform represents. We will manage this cultural direction more clearly.
PumpFun's content review mechanism: How to maintain order among tens of thousands of tokens per hour?
David: I'm actually one of those people who don't know PumpFun has a review mechanism at all. My previous opinion was: Since 60,000 or more tokens are launched every day, how can this be reviewed? This is simply an impossible amount of work. Can you tell me exactly how you did the review? For example, even though there are a lot of tokens, there aren't that many live streaming, so how do you carry out the review work on such a large scale?
Alon: Yes, during that time, the number of tokens listed every day was even over 60,000, and I remember that the peak for a day or two was even close to 80,000.
The problem with PumpFun and Memecoin as a whole is that everyone wants to “be the first to trade”. Therefore, many people will specifically browse those tokens that “just went live for a few seconds”. This extreme pursuit of “early entry” makes the review very difficult. As you can imagine, when you know that tens of thousands of people are watching the newly launched coins, and these coins probably only existed for a few seconds, this left us with an extremely limited review window.
David: I think from this perspective, the way to think about Memecoin now is not just about the “coin” itself, but about the mechanism designed around it. You guys removed the live streaming feature earlier; I think this is a great example. There was indeed a lot of exaggeration in the “live streaming era”. For example, Gen Z Kwon cashed out for a run rather than saying “thank you all for 20,000 dollars” during the live broadcast. Although it was very funny, it also explained the problem.
Then what else was Crackhead Dev smoking fentanyl on the live stream and faking the farce of his own death... anyway, it was a bit out of control at the time. However, once you remove the live streaming function, that “show-making” behavior will simply disappear. So I think PumpFun has the ability to guide user behavior through mechanism design. What other mechanisms do you think can continue to advance in this direction to help guide users towards healthier and more sustainable usage models?
Alon: In a fully decentralized system, it's very difficult to actually “stop” bad behavior. These are all permissionless systems, and anyone can enter, issue, and operate, so you can't completely prevent something from happening.
However, we believe that “social guidance” is particularly important. In other words, we need to guide attention to more positive, higher quality content through platform atmosphere and mechanism design.
I believe most products ultimately fail not because of mechanisms, but because they haven't really found a market fit. And once someone can get enough attention in the early stages, that kind of positive feedback is very powerful. So in the future, we'll look for ways to inspire projects that can “spread themselves” and have a positive impact.
We are also exploring ways for project parties or creators not to rely on “selling coins” to monetize. For example, revenue is obtained through other monetization mechanisms within the platform, rather than crashing the market and cashing out as soon as it goes online. This is a very critical direction for us.
This again goes back to the topic just now: How can we improve incentives at the agreement level? We want to promote the development of “positive behavior” — not just by relying on rules to limit bad behavior, but by providing economic and social incentives to give good projects more support and better living space.
How does PumpFun outperform imitators? Key elements behind success and answers to capital flows
David: There are also quite a few Token LaunchPads on the market, trying to replicate PumpFun's success, but none of them have really reached your size and reach. Why do you think? What did PumpFun do right that other platforms can't replicate?
Alon: I actually mentioned it a little bit earlier. Ultimately, the core is that we build products based on a truly “permissionless” system, which is critical.
We believe that as long as we continue to iterate, the market's choices will favor us. Judging from market feedback over the past year, the situation is very clear — user votes have already made the decision.
David: OK, so next I'd like to ask a question that isn't quite “fair,” but I think the audience will definitely look forward to. According to publicly available data, PumpFun has accumulated approximately $600 million in revenue, which has gone to the team, investors, or both. Where did all this money go? At 600 million US dollars, this profit scale is definitely at the top of the overall Crypto project, especially for a project that only went live in 2024.
Alon: All of this money has been reinvested into product development by us. For example, we are expanding our team. Currently, the core development team is about 45 to 50 people. Six months ago, there were actually fewer than 20 people; almost all of them were engineers. Now that we have data scientists, machine learning engineers, security personnel, etc., the team size is still expanding, and we just want to do our best to create the best products.
David: So this money hasn't been distributed to investors right now? You've only done one seed funding round, right?
Alon: Right.
David: I'm guessing you've hired quite a few people recently, after all, you're also launching new products frequently.
Alon: Yes, as I said earlier, the team size is now mostly stable at 45 to 50 people, and it's still mostly engineers, but there are quite a few people working on other functions.
PumpSwap launched: Why does PumpFun build its own AMM instead of continuing to rely on raydium?
David: One of the new products you just launched is PumpSwap, or PumpFun's native DEX. I noticed that this actually caused some shock within the Solana ecosystem. The previous approach was that when a Memecoin reached a certain market capitalization on PumpFun, it would “graduate” to raydium (the mainstream AMM on Solana) and enter the wider trading market. As a result, raydium received huge transaction volume and fee revenue.
Arguably, PumpFun's success has boosted the entire Solana ecosystem, including the price and activity of raydium tokens, and even SOL itself. So like Trump's Memecoin chose to launch on Solana before, I think it's because PumpFun sparked this narrative there.
Now that you've launched PumpSwap, you're replacing Raydium with your own AMM and moving in the direction of “vertical integration.” This is my understanding of the current changes, and you can correct me if there are any deviations. Can you talk about your logical and strategic considerations for launching PumpSwap?
Alon: Exactly. PumpSwap is something we've always wanted to do. There are two main drivers behind it.
First, we've made some improvements to the user experience, such as reducing fees when migrating tokens from Pump's Bonding Curve to AMM. Previously, about 6 SOL would be extracted from these migrations every day, but now this part is even less expensive.
Second, as an agreement, we believe it is necessary to maintain a high degree of consistency with users. The “platform model” is very good at doing this: it only charges a very low percentage of transaction fees and then continuously optimizes the experience.
As for the creator incentive mechanism you mentioned, we've actually talked about quite a bit before. The design of PumpSwap is to further promote the creation of higher-quality tokens and content with more long-term value. At the end of the day, our goal is to build a product that will survive and grow over the long term. To do this, you must continue to attract content creators from other circles.
We also made a more experimental experiment this time: introducing project parties and assets from other blockchains. We currently work with around 15 to 20 partners, and about 10 of them are bridging their tokens to Solana for the first time to provide liquidity on PumpSwap. Such as TRON, FRAX, Ethena, etc. It's something we've always wanted to do.
Many PumpFun users actually don't even know what CT (Crypto Twitter) is, they haven't registered centralized exchange accounts, and haven't participated in those “big stories” at all. They just use their wallets to interact with our platform. So we wanted to bring these projects to them in an easier to use way. This experiment probably won't be disruptive on day one, but we're optimistic about it and hope it will help more people actually enter the crypto world, not just stay on the surface of Memecoin.
David: I've learned that PumpSwap uses a constant product AMM model (xy=k) similar to Uniswap V2, rather than the V3 centralized liquidity design. Why did you choose this more “basic” design? Are further evolutions being considered in the future?
Alon: Yes, we chose this model for a simple reason: “Don't fix a system that isn't broken.”
Uniswap V2's curve is very close to optimal in terms of long-tail assets (such as Memecoin). Of course, there is still plenty of room for improvement in the future. For example, when a token succeeds, people may take the initiative to provide it with liquidity on centralized liquidity AMM or order book exchanges. But in the beginning, we just need to start with a stable, basic design and polish the core experience.
Creator Profit Sharing Mechanism: A Key Step in Changing the Memecoin Incentives Model?
David: We've actually talked about creator revenue sharing (Creator Revenue Sharing) before, but I'd like to emphasize this mechanism again, because if Memecoin were to enter a new stage, I really want this mechanism to become the core of it.
I understand the dividend for creators like this: it allows token creators to no longer make money by “selling coins,” but instead earn revenue through fees generated by transaction volume. In the old model, the only way for creators to make money was to sell their own tokens; in fact, this fundamentally conflicts with the interests of other coin holders. The more the creators want to make money, the more they want to cash out when the price rises, but once they break the market, this token is over, and everyone has to find another way out.
And through the profit sharing mechanism, even if a creator doesn't hold coins at first (of course, there will still be some in reality), as long as they continue to drive the popularity and transaction volume of the token, they can reap benefits from it. This incentive model is in the same camp as other coin holders. If the currency price rises and transactions are active, creators can continue to earn money. This gave Memecoin the concept of a “growth path”. It can no longer just be a one-off game, but continue to operate like a microbusiness project.
This also echoes the “creator economy” concept we heard in 2021 — a lot of people talked about it at the time, but very little actually came to fruition. And I think this profit sharing mechanism is a step in that direction. Although it's still experimental and hasn't been fully validated, I'm very optimistic about it. Do you think my optimistic judgement is valid? What would you add?
Alon: I agree completely; honestly, you've put it very well. I also think we're still in the experimental phase, and we're still exploring how to get creators to actually enter Crypto and stay — not only sustainable for them personally, but healthy for the community and coin holders.
与RaydiumParting ways? PumpSwap's ecological controversy over replacing AMM
David: I read a tweet from a core member of Raydium responding to the news that PumpFun is launching its own AMM. They write: PumpFun did a great job, but it's hard to say whether it can replicate the original network effects on a brand new, unverified AMM. Raydium will continue to build infrastructure for other teams, and PumpFun's move to completely replace Raydium is a serious underestimate of Raydium's role in initiating liquidity. What do you think?
Alon: Of course I disagree (laughs). If they also want to make LaunchPad and try out all the new models and features, we welcome them. This industry requires everyone to keep experimenting and evolving.
But at the end of the day, we don't want to rely on any third party. While PumpSwap gave us this freedom, it also meant greater responsibility. We want to be able to deliver products independently, without restrictions, and without excuses.
David: Raydium also recently announced the launch of its own Launch Lab, which looks like a fork of PumpFun. Do you think this is a sign of a war between the two sides, or can you continue to work as ecological partners?
Alon: I don't think this is a competition or a “war.” There are enough opportunities in this space, and enough subdivided tracks to accommodate different modes. There will be many different segmented tracks in the future, each of which may require exclusive mechanisms and products to serve. This is an inevitable trend.
Crypto is social: How does PumpFun incorporate “emotional value” into products?
David: As you know, the entire crypto world is actually highly social. Whether it's Crypto Twitter, community gossip, or all kinds of gossip, every layer of this industry is highly relevant to society. And the live streaming feature you introduced earlier actually confirms this. Now that you have new plans on your tech stack, can you talk about how more social elements will be incorporated into PumpFun in the future?
Alon: It's really something we meant from the beginning. We've made it very clear that we've added a social layer to the design. For example, at the time, mainstream product UIs in the entire industry were similar to DEX Screener data lists, which were particularly “financialized” and very cold.
And we did the opposite, and the design focused more on fun and interactivity. Because at the end of the day, the reason social platforms are ubiquitous is because they bring entertainment and value.
Many people misunderstand Memecoin users; they think all users are speculating wildly and trying to make money. But in reality, if you talk to users who don't have centralized exchange accounts and aren't on Crypto Twitter, they'll say, “This platform is very fun. It's fun to play with friends, make a joke, and by the way, speculate on coins on the chain.”
Instead of making a fortune, they used this as an on-chain social entertainment activity. This is often overlooked.
We recently launched the Direct Message (DM) feature and will continue to iterate on this. We're generally reluctant to reveal new features we're working on too soon, but I can say that we still have a lot of layout to look forward to on the path of “making PumpFun more social.”
The fusion of content, attention and market: Is PumpFun building an on-chain “news marketplace”?
David: I think there's a racetrack that hasn't been fully opened right now, at the intersection of content, news, attention, and the token market. Look at Polymarket, which essentially creates a prediction market around news events. And I think PumpFun is actually moving in this direction as well.
The ultimate form of this model may not be clear to anyone yet, but we can see a “vague but clear” aggregation of values: users focus their attention on hot content or events, and then this attention is directly translated into market behavior. This combination has great potential, and PumpFun is currently one of the products closest to this “center” of core values. What do you think of the integration of content, news, and markets? Where do you think it might go?
Alon: I'm glad you mentioned Polymarket. I agree, this model is very interesting. We do see a phenomenon on PumpFun — whenever a major news event occurs, users quickly create related tokens around that event. It's like a “real-time news reaction” on the chain.
This is very appealing. I don't know what this trend will eventually evolve into, but there must be something here. Most news or social media content is fleeting because attention resources are extremely limited. But once you can use tokens, markets, and game mechanics to “anchor” your attention to a piece of content, there is a possibility that it can be converted into economic value.
Memecoin's future: what we want it to look like versus what it might look like in reality
David: OK, we're almost at the end, and I want to ask you a double question: What do you want the future of Memecoin to look like? What is your ideal picture? Then, what do you think it will actually become?
Alon: That's a great question. I really need to be careful when answering these questions to avoid being too idealistic. We all want things to be some way, but what is the reality, we have to face it honestly. What I want to see is a change in the overall narrative framework. Today, many people think that trading tokens on the chain is a “meaningless” and “nihilistic” act. I never agree with the so-called “financial nihilism.” I think that's just a set of rhetoric created by people on Crypto Twitter to make excuses for what is happening right now.
But at the end of the day, the reason people trade these things is obviously because they actually have value. And the reason they have “financial value” is because they are also valuable in other dimensions — for example, they provide entertainment or attract attention.
In the next phase, I want to see more valuable content, and hope to see fewer low-quality, or even objectionable incidents. In this regard, I think PumpFun really needs to take more responsibility and actively set the tone for the platform's culture. I really appreciate that some platforms lead to a healthier community atmosphere through content reviews and codes of conduct. It probably won't bring the extreme “crazy experience” we saw in November or January of this year, but if we can make people want to log in to the platform every day, keep using it, and have a sense of belonging and fun — that's what we really want to build.
Is Memecoin Poison or a Misunderstanding? Alon responds to “casino” accusations
David: Some listeners may be deeply rooted in the idea that Memecoin is “inherently harmful.” They feel that Memecoin doesn't have any positive value; it's just a short-term casino. This statement now sounds very reasonable, after all:
According to the data, since its launch on January 14, 2024, PumpFun has issued 8.7 million tokens, generating cumulative revenue of 600 million US dollars; however, only 4 tokens currently maintain a market value of more than 100 million US dollars. Many people see this contrast and think that the money PumpFun makes is far higher than the true value of the entire ecosystem. Does this validate the claim that “Memecoin is ruining the industry”? What do you think of this question?
Alon: First, I think this kind of criticism is particularly easy to accept when the market is plummeting. Solana fell 50%, and neither ETH nor BTC reached their all-time highs. All assets — Memecoin, NFTs, DeFi projects, altcoins — are inherently risky assets. When the overall market declines, Memecoin will naturally fall as well.
Looking back, in November of last year, the cumulative market value of tokens on PumpFun was close to $8 billion. This shows that it really attracts attention and can focus mobility. Of course, it is also extremely volatile, and no one denies that.
But I think the core value of Memecoin is its ability to motivate and engage users, and this is exactly where Crypto has generally been lacking in the past few years. It wasn't Memecoin that destroyed the market, but that many projects failed to make something that really impressed users.
Memecoin must continue to evolve if it doesn't want to be forgotten — we're working hard to participate in and drive that evolution. Ultimately, the market will decide if PumpFun can continue to exist. However, the Memecoin model is not going away because it satisfies users' needs for emotional expression, participation, and entertainment, an aspect that Crypto cannot ignore.
What is PumpFun's mission?
David: If you were to sum up PumpFun's mission, what would you say? Do you want more people to issue coins? Is it a higher trading volume? Is it helping users become rich? What exactly are your core goals?
Alon: I think these goals are actually all interlinked. Of course, trading volume is a critical part of this, as it directly reflects activity and the true popularity of the ecosystem.
Like all L1 or L2 blockchains, when evaluating a network, we usually look at its economic activity, such as recent revenue metrics that everyone is concerned about, which represents the real economic value created. We also hope that PumpFun will create long-term economic value. From this perspective, transaction volume is indeed our core indicator right now.
Of course, that doesn't mean the other goals aren't important. For example, many people think that “more tokens” itself is a bad thing, but I always think that the number of tokens itself is neutral; the key is whether it brings about healthy behavior and quality content. We will also launch a series of features in the future to guide the generation of higher quality token content.
A low threshold is key. If you lower the entry threshold, especially to make it easy for those who haven't actually entered the crypto ecosystem to participate, you could inadvertently inspire a lot of valuable stuff.
For example, if you look at projects like Griffin and Wojak, if they require 10 or 20 SOL to issue coins at the beginning, they won't show up or catch fire at all. Therefore, we think it is very important to lower the threshold for issuing coins.
Of course, the fact that users make money is also very important. You only need to look at the data to know: when the market is at its hottest, trading volume is highest, user sentiment is the most optimistic, and everyone's attitude towards Memecoin is also the most positive.
David: OK, last question: when will the $PUMP tokens be issued?
Alon: There are currently no plans to issue coins.
David: Sounds like you chose the “right to silence.” Alon, thank you so much for visiting Bankless today.
