Power Transition: The Rise and Fall of the Empire of the Meme Coin Issuance Platform on Solana

In the cryptocurrency world, power transitions often come swiftly and ruthlessly. The meme coin issuance platform on the Solana chain is staging a classic power shift.

Not long ago, Pump.fun was still at the top, but its market share has plummeted from 88% to 13%. Meanwhile, the emerging challenger Let'sBONK has rapidly risen to claim 86% of the market. This is not only another reflection of the volatility in the crypto market but also a typical case of an empire's collapse. It tells us that when we overlook attention as the ultimate moat, even the greatest first-mover advantage can instantly vanish.

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The Rise and Fall of Pump.fun

Pump.fun was launched in January 2024 by three young people in their 20s. It disrupts the issuance logic of memes: users only need to upload an image, give it a name, click a few times, and they can issue a token for less than $2, without any programming knowledge.

This satisfies an underlying impulse to transform 'worthless' into 'valuable'. In the crypto world, this is not a delusion, but a business model. By January 2025, Pump.fun generated over $458 million in revenue, launching thousands of new coins daily, with peak daily earnings exceeding $7 million.

However, the decline of Pump.fun began with one of its most innovative features: live streaming. Originally intended to allow token issuers to promote their coins, things quickly spiraled out of control. Some began to engage in extreme behavior during the live streams, and there were even serious incidents involving underage users threatening their family with guns.

Pump.fun was forced to shut down its live streaming feature, but its reputation has already been severely damaged. Weekly revenue plummeted by 66%, public opinion backlash, and competitors seized the opportunity. Faced with declining revenue and competitive pressure, Pump.fun decided to rescue itself by issuing coins (ICO).

Although the ICO raised $500 million in 12 minutes, plus $700 million from private placements, it seems successful. However, a deeper analysis reveals that over 200 wallets hit the $1 million cap, with the top 340 buyers consuming 60% of the shares. All sold tokens were fully unlocked, with only a 48 to 72-hour transfer restriction.

The token price initially skyrocketed by 75% to $0.007, but the enthusiasm quickly cooled down. It fell by 60% within a few weeks, continuously hitting new lows, showing a typical "death spiral" trend. The tokenomics is also very aggressive, with only 33% allocated for public and private offerings, while 67% is held by the project team, and the allocation timeline is unclear.

Despite users generating nearly $750 million for the platform, there are no immediate community rewards. At the same time, private investors sold tokens worth $160 million to the exchange, creating significant selling pressure.

The final blow came when co-founder Alon Cohen publicly announced that the long-promised airdrop "will not happen in the foreseeable future." This announcement led to a 15% drop in the token price within 24 hours.

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The Rise of Let'sBONK

When Pump.fun keeps making mistakes, Let'sBONK is quietly building everything the competitors lack: transparency, community orientation, and clear communication.

Currently, Let'sBONK's daily revenue has reached 1.3 million USD, which is 5 times that of Pump.fun. Annualized, Let'sBONK's monthly revenue amounts to 434.92 million USD, while Pump.fun is at 267.25 million USD.

From almost zero in May to steadily breaking a daily income of one million dollars in July, Let'sBONK's revenue has been steadily rising. Meanwhile, Pump.fun's revenue has plummeted from a peak of over 7 million dollars in January, falling back to the levels of September 2024.

Since the ICO, the PUMP token has lost 60% of its market value, while BONK remains relatively stable with a market value of 2.1 billion dollars. Let's BONK will use 1% of its weekly revenue to buy back BONK, supporting this ecological token that predates the platform and has a solid foundation.

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Attention Economy

Pump.fun once gained an advantage through network effects. Developers issue coins there because traders are there; traders are there because the hottest memes are launched there. This flywheel effect seems unstoppable.

But attention is fragile. It is not like the moats of traditional businesses—economies of scale, switching costs, regulatory barriers—once trust collapses, user mentality can disintegrate instantly. A live broadcast incident gives users reason to try alternative platforms. Let'sBONK quickly becomes the "clean" choice, a platform without a historical burden.

After realizing the crisis of life and death, Pump.fun launched a nearly desperate counterattack. They raised the token buyback ratio from 25% of daily revenue to 100%. Although this means that about $254,000 is used for buybacks daily, far exceeding Let'sBONK's daily buyback of $13,000 (only 1%), it also represents that Pump.fun is using all of its revenue for buybacks instead of for platform growth.

Secondly, they launched a 30-day incentive program that rewards PUMP tokens based on trading activity. However, initial feedback shows that this strategy has not changed the competitive landscape.

The issue is not on a tactical level, but on a strategic level. No amount of buybacks or incentive plans can restore lost trust, nor can they regain the attention of users who have already shifted their focus.

The reward mechanism of Pump.fun is solely based on trading volume, while Let'sBONK has built a truly user-interest-aligned ecological reward system.

The BONK reward program allows users to lock up their assets for 6 to 12 months to proportionally receive revenue sharing from ecological products. The longer the lock-up period, the higher the multiplier. The better the product performance, the more returns users receive. This is not about "spending money to make others trade," but rather "paying to allow users to build together."

Users can earn "Bonk Points" through trading, purchasing, or issuing coins. These points are expected to be redeemable for physical goods or rights in the future, further incentivizing active participation. The gamified growth experience makes users feel like they are part of a larger mission.

While Pump.fun was still exploring ICOs and experiencing airdrop delays, Let'sBONK has already provided a structured reward system for core users. In the crypto world, capital will always flow towards better incentive mechanisms.

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A Bigger Picture

In traditional industries, market leaders can often hold their positions for decades. However, in the digital market, the cost of switching for users is close to zero, and a dominant position can vanish in just a few months.

The success of Let'sBONK is not because they built a fundamentally superior product, but because they entered the market at the most vulnerable moment of Pump.fun's reputation. In the attention economy, timing is often more critical than technology.

The winner-takes-all logic of network effects is beginning to reverse. Once users start migrating to Let'sBONK, the flywheel that helped Pump.fun rise also starts to reverse. Developers follow traders, and traders chase the hottest projects, causing the platform's decline to accelerate.

Is there still a chance for Pump.fun to turn things around? Although its market share has significantly shrunk, it hasn't reached the point of being out of the game.

They do have some advantages: the $1.2 billion in financing has bought them time and provided them with the capital to experiment and outlast competitors. Their platform has supported hundreds of thousands of project issuances without collapsing—this is particularly important in an environment where other new platforms can easily fail under pressure. Even with a decrease in market share, they still generate over $250,000 in revenue daily, approaching $100 million annualized, and with a huge capital reserve, they still have a solid foundation.

They are the pioneers of this category. Transforming coin issuance from programming into a few clicks of the mouse has won them lasting brand recognition. The first-mover advantage doesn't just disappear.

Recent actions also indicate that they have not given up: Pump.fun 2.0 has introduced real-time data updates and one-click trading; the buyback ratio has been increased to 100%; and user incentives have been launched. These are not signs of surrender, but rather a counterattack.

The most likely scenario is not a complete collapse, but rather market fragmentation. There are rarely any permanent monopolists in the crypto space. More likely, Let'sBONK will become the main platform, dominating the issuance and revenue of coins, while Pump.fun will transform into a niche platform with loyal users, securing a place through its interface, features, or ecosystem.

But to really turn the tide, Pump.fun must not only solve technical issues or rely on money to retain users, but must also rebuild trust and reclaim cultural high ground. This means achieving transparency and a community-centered token economic structure, and it may even require a complete overhaul of the leadership to thoroughly break away from past controversies.

In this rapidly changing cryptocurrency world, power shifts often come quickly and ruthlessly. When a platform loses its legitimacy, no amount of funding or marketing can restore user trust. Sometimes, for the sake of the ecosystem's continuation, the crown must be passed to newcomers.

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