The coin issuing platform is crazy, are you really making money?

As a pioneer in the one-click meme coin launch platform, Pump.fun has established a basic operating model. Users only need to fill in basic information such as the token name and symbol, and can automatically deploy token contracts and establish transaction pools without programming skills, greatly reducing the token issuance threshold. The platform uses a variety of binding curve pricing models to balance initial prices and market demand. The issued tokens can be immediately traded in the platform's AMM pool without injecting liquidity in advance.

The platform innovatively introduced an LP share burning mechanism. When the new coin reaches a specific market capitalization threshold, part of the liquidity is automatically injected into the Raydium trading pool and the corresponding LP tokens are destroyed, ensuring that the project party cannot withdraw from the pool and run away, improving liquidity security.

With the experience of “codeless coin issuance and instant transaction”, Pump.fun quickly became popular in 2024, spawning a large number of creative meme tokens, including 100 times or even 1,000 times coins, attracting many speculators. By extracting transaction fees, the platform became one of the most profitable on-chain apps in 2024.

However, as it developed, Pump.fun's problems gradually became apparent: less than 1% of the more than 8 million issued tokens successfully “graduated” into external liquidity pools; user earnings were severely polarized, forming a zero-sum game; the platform monetized fees and continued to sell SOL, putting selling pressure on the Solana network; and the completely anonymous and unaudited model, although in line with the cryptographic spirit, posed regulatory and trust risks. As a result, Pump.fun's growth rate slowed in early 2025, and daily transaction volume fell from a peak of $544 million in January to $270 million in February, a drop of nearly 50%.

Pumpfun's weekly token graduation rate continues to decline

Raydium LaunchLab is one of Pump.fun's most direct contenders in the Solana ecosystem. Raydium itself is an important AMM protocol on Solana, and initially benefited from the Pump.fun project contributing 41% of its swap fee revenue. However, with the launch of Pump.fun's self-supporting portal PumpSwap, Raydium's traffic and trading volume were significantly impacted.

In March 2025, Raydium released LaunchLab, seen as a direct counterattack against Pump.fun. The overall mechanism of the platform is very similar to Pump.fun. They all support one-click coin issuance and curve pricing, but the details have been optimized in a targeted manner.

Supports multiple pricing curves, allowing project parties to select linear, logarithmic, or exponential models based on token positioning; setting a lower transaction rate of 1%, lower than 2% of Pump.fun, with no additional migration costs; the graduation threshold has also been lowered, and only 85 SOL (about 11,000 US dollars) can be transferred to the Raydium Raydium AMM pool; at the same time, a creator sharing mechanism has been introduced, so that the founder of the graduation token can continue to receive 10% profit; the platform has also strengthened ecological integration, including fees to buy back the platform RAY, Support LP lock-up and introduce innovative designs such as pricing diversity.

On the day of the announcement, RAY coins rose 14% in response, and the market had high hopes for Raydium LaunchLab. Although the government stated that LaunchLab “provides an alternative,” it has actually successfully attracted some projects to shift, weakening Pump.fun's dominance.

In addition, LetsBonk.fun, which was jointly launched with the BONK community, and various platforms such as Meteora, Boop, and Genesis Launches are also struggling to break the game, driving the entire Launchpad market into full competition.

LaunchLab's daily active users are growing rapidly

At a time when the Meme Launchpad circuit is becoming increasingly crowded, the “rebirth” of the Believe project has attracted widespread attention in the industry.

At a time when the Meme Launchpad circuit is becoming increasingly crowded, the rebirth of the Believe project has attracted widespread attention in the industry. Founded by Australian entrepreneur Ben Pasternak, Believe is the social token platform Clout. Ben has built and successfully monetized several popular apps, but Clout quickly fell silent due to excessive reliance on celebrity effects. At the end of April 2025, Ben returned to the market with the upgraded platform Believe, shifting the concept from “Believe in Someone” to “Believe in Something,” emphasizing the value belief in ideas and ideas, marking the platform's strategic transformation from social asset trading to a creative incubation factory.

Ben himself commented on the change, “This is a shift from influence (influence) to trust (Trust). We're no longer hyping up celebrities, we're looking for meaningful projects.”

Believe uses a unique product mechanism and uses a social platform as an entry point to achieve a seamless connection between Web2 and Web3. Users only need to add a token name on the X platform @LaunchACoin, and the system automatically creates tokens using Meteora's union curve without logging in to a dApp or filling out a form. This “discuss and issue tokens” interactive model allows any valuable idea to be instantly converted into a token, greatly lowering the threshold for participation. The platform has also set up a “B point” mechanism. When the transaction fee income in current currency reaches a critical value, the founder can withdraw funds to support the project. If the standard is not met, it is treated as a market rejection. Although B points are not a hard numerical threshold, the logic behind it is similar to the Kickstarter-style crowdfunding mechanism “transaction popularity is market voting”

Alliance DAO founding partner Imran Khan once commented, “When the founder or Scout marks @LaunchACoin, a token is born. The market will assign value to this idea based on the importance of the problem to be solved”. In short, market popularity determines the fate of the project.

In terms of revenue structure, Believe has also carried out a series of innovative designs. Each transaction charges a 2% processing fee. Unlike other LaunchPads, his token still has a 2% transaction tax for each sale within the contract after launch, but its distribution structure is highly incentive-oriented: 1% is distributed to the token creator (founder), 0.1% is rewarded to Scout (the user who first discovered or promoted the token), and the remaining 0.9% is operated by the platform. This mechanism not only guarantees instant earnings for creators, but also incorporates “token finders” into the revenue sharing system for the first time, which greatly motivates the community to actively discover and spread high-quality ideas.

Since its launch, Believe has recorded a total transaction volume of $1.8 billion, bringing creators $9.5 million in direct revenue, of which $4.7 million is part of the Believe token transaction.

According to BelieveScan panel data, Believe's fee revenue in the past 24 hours is about 10 million

While opening up the issuance of coins, Believe is also trying to control the platform order to a certain extent to avoid becoming a place where junk coins are rampant.

In terms of creator incentives, Believe's mechanism is to choose to share with issuers and directly return 1% of each transaction; founders can freely define distribution without reserve positions or token ratio control; establish a Scout incentive mechanism to promote “decentralization” of content discovery; and the platform actively displays data such as transaction volume and creator income to enhance transparency. The addition of some Web2 entrepreneurs has also strengthened Believe's meta-temperament. RizzGPT developer Alex Leiman, well-known hacker Ruben Norte, etc. have all issued personal tokens on the platform, and the market value of the project has all reached millions of dollars, driving Believe's image from a pure meme player park to a “testing ground for creative value.”

This narrative logic was particularly evident in the LaunchCoin incident. The token was formerly PASTERNAK personally issued by Ben, and was later renamed LaunchCoin when the platform was launched, giving it functional significance. LaunchCoin soared 200 times on the day it went live, and its market capitalization exceeded 200 million US dollars, which sparked intense discussions in the community for a while.

Some users see this as a sign that the platform has officially entered the governance token phase; others question whether Ben is using his status as a founder to arbitrage. In the end, Ben sold most of his holdings in installments, making a profit of approximately $1.3 million. The fate of LaunchCoin has sparked a heated debate in the community around the core theme of “trust.” Whether supporters or skeptics, the storm successfully brought Believe's brand positioning back to the center of discussion and validated its focus on its main value direction.

Trust narratives emphasize the value behind creativity, and no longer simply encourage silly operations to attract more rational builders and entrepreneurs. The benefit-bundling mechanism allows creators, scouts, and platforms to have a revenue mechanism, which binds participants' interests at the economic level and continuously motivates high-quality content. Under this mechanism, although there are currently many Web2 talents launching tokens with products.

However, the real feedback from today's community participation is that robots get most of the chips after the launch, and there are fewer sales orders due to the high taxes that existed at the beginning. Among them, high-quality projects will quickly reach a market value of more than 5 to 10 million US dollars, then transaction taxes will be reduced, and robots with large amounts of chips will be sold in large numbers. As a result, many tokens have risen to hundreds or even tens of millions of market values, but the continuity is not very good. Some people in the community think that they are all good for entrepreneurs, scouts, and platforms, but these are all bought by scattered investors.

Through Believe, Ben hopes to find a dynamic balance between “empowering real value projects” and “curbing blind speculation bubbles.” Although the market is still debating whether it will actually take the long term, at this stage, Believe has successfully established a differentiated label in the Meme Launchpad fierce battle based on mechanism innovation, topical events, and explosive data.

After experiencing the follow-up and imitation of Pump.fun's unrivaled platform, the current Meme Launchpad market has formed several leading groups. Below is a horizontal comparison of Pump.fun, Raydium LaunchLab, Boop, and Believe in key dimensions.

Pump.fun, LaunchLab, and SunPump all use dApp page one-click tokenization. Users are required to log in and fill in relevant token information to complete the deployment process. Believe completely breaks out of the dApp paradigm and uses Twitter social links to trigger token issuance without entering the platform page.

Judging from the threshold, Boop, Pump.fun, and LaunchLab have almost no requirements for issuers; any user can send coins at any time. Believe has ostensibly zero threshold. In fact, they have formed a kind of “natural screening” through social networking, focusing on entrepreneurs such as Ben and Alex, and becoming the first creators and participants.

In terms of the “graduation threshold,” Pump.fun was initially set to reach a market capitalization of $69,000; LaunchLab initially set 85 SOL to “about $11,000,” but it is possible to set a launch mode of at least 30 SOL, which is even lower; and Believe does not set a fixed threshold to determine whether an idea is accepted by the market based on “B Point” transaction fee revenue.

Pump.fun charges 2% transaction fees, which are initially all owned by the platform, and 50% will be returned to creators starting in May 2025; LaunchLab's transaction rate is 1%, of which 25% is used to buy back the platform coin RAY, and founders can apply for an additional 10%; Believe charges a 2% transaction fee and is embedded in the token contract, of which 1% is reserved for creators and 0.1% for Scout and 0.9% platforms. Judging from the data, Believe provides creators with the highest share of all platforms, and at the same time pioneered Scout profit sharing incentives, so that founders can continue to benefit.

Pump.fun follows extreme liberalism, no review, no governance mechanism. The community relies on spontaneous organizations to carry out hot communication, but as a result, it is easy for bookmakers to manipulate, and retail investors “lose more, win less.”

Raydium LaunchLab uses its AMM background to bind DeFi community resources and circulate within the ecosystem through platform coin incentives; Boop relies on Dingaling's previous influence in the community.

Believe is trying to add community consensus decision-making elements to governance. Through methods such as coin holding governance, snapshot voting, etc., discussions were held on whether to enter the DEX liquidity pool and whether to support promotion, etc., to form a prototype framework from “issuing coins is governance.” If it matures in the future, the stickiness of its user community is expected to far surpass that of current mainstream platforms.

In terms of creator incentives, Believe and LaunchLab are the most appealing. On the basis of refunds of 1% processing fee when coins are issued, Believe has created a flywheel effect of issuing coins → pulling new coins → reissuing coins in combination with the Scout reward mechanism.

LaunchLab retains creators through methods such as low barriers, high freedom, and RAY repurchases. Pump.fun lost part of its appeal in the new environment due to lack of early incentives.

As the Meme Launchpad market moves from explosion to maturity, some key trends are emerging, providing a reference direction for platform competition and industry evolution.

On-chain data shows that the meme coin issuance frenzy is declining. Take Pump.fun as an example. The daily transaction volume and number of coins issued per day declined markedly in early 2025, making the myth of “getting rich overnight” difficult to replicate on a large scale.

This means that the stage of barbaric growth is coming to an end, and competition between platforms will shift to refined operations. Whoever can continue to make exploits, increase creators' returns, and improve the user transaction experience will be able to take the initiative before the next wave. Data from Pump.fun users voting with their feet (low transaction amounts) also shows that if the platform fails to improve participants' profit and loss structure and emotional experience, even the first-mover advantage will gradually be encroached upon.

Pump.fun's early profit model was simple and crude: the platform charged processing fees, and the user's game win rate was extremely low, forming a one-sided structure of “platform wins, user loses”. Meanwhile, new platforms such as Believe and LaunchLab generally grow by benefiting creators and communities.

For example, Believe directly returns 1% of the processing fee to the founder to encourage creators to continue to produce content; LaunchLab creates a closed loop of more endogenous growth through fee sharing and RAY repurchases. The future Launchpad will place more emphasis on the win-win situation of the platform, creators, and users to form a true “content incentive network”.

Pump.fun recently introduced a profit sharing mechanism for creators, which can also be seen as an imposition of this new model on old players.

As competition for Solana platforms (Pump.fun, LaunchLab, BONK) heats up, other public chains are also stepping up their own Meme Launchpads: Tron's SunPump, Solana's Boop, Base's Genesis Initiatives, and even projects with ICP and Avalanche ecosystems have begun testing the waters.

Essentially, meme platforms have become a powerful tool for public chains to compete for active users. Meme coins are naturally suitable for building on-chain traffic due to their low threshold and strong topical nature.

In the future, major public chains may spawn one or two leading meme launchpads, which will be deeply integrated with wallets, social networking, and NFT tools, becoming an important indicator of ecological activity and user loyalty.

The core of memes isn't about technology; it's about storytelling. The platform itself is no exception:

Pump.fun started with “extreme freedom and absolute openness”, but as a result, it fell into the problem of rampant bookmakers and poor project quality;

Raydium emphasizes “fair launch and technology optimization” to create an “avenger” image and seek the return of native users;

Boop will feed back the personal brand “Dingaling” and $Boop's ecosystem, focusing on recovering the value of core tokens;

Believe, on the other hand, follows the “trust and value” route in an attempt to attract the Builder community and use ideas as the origin of memes.

In the future, community culture will directly determine what kind of user groups the platform attracts: whether it is Degen (pure speculation), KOL (with single type), Builder (value oriented), or mass users (mainly entertainment). The differentiated positioning of the platform will not stop at the product mechanism, but expand to the level of emotional consensus and cultural atmosphere.

Looking at the daily token deployment ratio, Pumpfun's market share has changed from a large monopoly to 57%

Although currently 99% of meme coins are still short-term speculations, some projects have begun to try “moving from memes to products.” Some founders use fees to establish an initial capital pool and begin to form teams and develop prototypes; some platforms, such as Believe, encourage founders to implement the roadmap through a mechanism of “releasing start-up capital after reaching point B”;

The community has begun long-term observation and governance of some tokens. For example, LaunchCoin has experimental value in terms of governance, profit sharing, and function expansion. If a small number of meme projects are successfully incubated into actual products through Launchpad in the future, their “symbolism” will have a profound impact on the entire industry: it proves that Launchpad can not only incubate speculative coins, but also nurture Web3 goals. At that time, Launchpad will no longer be a “release tool,” but rather a “project cold start infrastructure.”

Meme Launchpad is at the tipping point of going from a barbaric outbreak to refined operations. Pump.fun's monopoly situation has been broken, and platforms such as Raydium LaunchLab and Believe have entered the market through differentiated play, gradually seizing the share of users and creators.

The winners of the future industry will not necessarily be the ones with the lowest fees, but the ones that can build a content flywheel, community consensus, and platform trust mechanisms. Believe has now initially established its own differentiated moat through social distribution models, scout incentives, and governance exploration, showing strong potential for iteration and growth. Of course, it's still a marathon competition. A platform that can truly stand out must balance the multiple dimensions of “cultural identity, win-win for creators, ecological governance, and safety compliance”.

Like Ben Pasternak said, “We're not just a platform; we want to give every good idea a possibility to monetize it.” This is probably the direction Meme Launchpad is most believable in its next phase.