To trade or launch a token on Pump.fun, you'll typically need to fund a centralized exchange account with fiat first. You can complete account setup and KYC through the Binance Official Site or the Official Binance App, and iPhone users who can't install directly should check the iOS install guide. Pump.fun is a Memecoin launchpad that went live on Solana in January 2024, letting anyone create a freely tradable token for 0.02 SOL (about $4). Its core mechanism is a bonding curve — the token's price is set by a preset algorithm, and once market cap hits $69,000 it automatically "graduates" and migrates to Raydium. In its first 27 months, Pump.fun has created more than 6 million tokens and generates $80-150 million in monthly revenue, making it one of the most profitable dApps in history. But it's also the biggest breeding ground for Memecoin rug pulls — roughly 98% of the tokens created on it go to zero within hours.
Pump.fun's core innovation is making token creation completely automated and permissionless.
On the Pump.fun website, users:
Contract deployment, initial liquidity, and bonding-curve setup all happen automatically. Users end up with a tradable token within 30 seconds.
Tokens don't need a "market maker" or "liquidity provider" — price is set automatically by the bonding-curve algorithm. Key characteristics of the curve:
| Percent Bought | Token Price (USD) |
|---|---|
| 0% | 0.000028 |
| 25% | 0.0000378 |
| 50% | 0.0000523 |
| 75% | 0.0000816 |
| 100% | 0.000069 |
Throughout the bonding-curve phase, every trade happens directly against the curve (no LP involved), so there's no slippage and no impermanent loss — but there's also no "traditional liquidity" either.
Once a token's market cap hits $69,000, Pump.fun automatically:
After graduating, the token trades freely on Raydium and can be picked up by aggregators, DEX tools, and centralized exchanges.
Pump.fun's revenue comes from:
Creation fee: 0.02 SOL per token, about $4.
Bonding-curve trading fee: 1% on buys plus 1% on sells.
Graduation fee: 6 SOL (about $1,100) charged when a token graduates.
According to Pump.fun's on-chain data as of April 2026:
| Month | Tokens Created | Total Revenue (USD) | Average Revenue per Token |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 2024 | 180,000 | $45 million | $250 |
| Oct 2024 | 650,000 | $82 million | $126 |
| Dec 2024 | 1.1 million | $120 million | $109 |
| Jun 2025 | 950,000 | $85 million | $89 |
| Dec 2025 | 750,000 | $80 million | $107 |
| Apr 2026 | 500,000 | $75 million | $150 |
Cumulative lifetime revenue is estimated at around $2.8-3.2 billion. Against operating costs (team plus infrastructure) of only a few tens of millions of dollars, Pump.fun is an extraordinarily high-margin, breakout Web3 project.
Based on on-chain analysis from Birdeye and Dune Analytics:
The largest user group (about 70%). Ordinary users treat Pump.fun as an "early sniping" game — watching for newly created tokens, buying in first, and hoping for a graduation pump.
Average outcomes: about 60% of users lose money long-term, 25% roughly break even, and 15% profit long-term.
The second-largest group (about 20%). Professional teams mass-produce tokens and combine that with wash trading to pump the price and lure in retail buyers, then dump immediately after the token graduates at $69,000 market cap.
The third-largest group (about 8%). Influencers with large followings create Memecoins and use their audience to drive up market cap. A handful of these tokens successfully graduate and keep climbing (such as GOAT and Chillguy).
The fourth-largest group (about 2%). AI agents like Truth Terminal launch tokens directly — GOAT (Goatseus Maximus) was born this way in October 2024, later peaking at a $900 million market cap.
Based on Solana Beach data from April 2026, here's what happens to tokens created on Pump.fun:
| Status | Share |
|---|---|
| Zeroed out within 1 hour | 75% |
| Zeroed out within 24 hours | 88% |
| Zeroed out within 1 week | 95% |
| Successfully graduated (hit $69K market cap) | 1.7% |
| Market cap stays above $1 million after graduating | 0.15% |
| Sustained operation (active for 6+ months) | 0.05% |
In other words, out of every 2,000 tokens launched on Pump.fun:
That ratio puts Pump.fun close to gambling territory — 99.95% of the tokens investors put money into end up worthless or near-worthless.
Despite the low success rate, a few "phenomenon-level" graduates have emerged:
| Token | Graduation Date | Current Market Cap | Backstory |
|---|---|---|---|
| GOAT | Oct 2024 | $130M | Created by an AI agent, a "religious Memecoin" narrative |
| Fartcoin | Oct 2024 | $150M | Created by the AI agent Truth Terminal |
| MOODENG | Sep 2024 | $250M | A baby pygmy hippo from a Thai zoo |
| PNUT | Nov 2024 | $180M | A deceased internet-famous squirrel |
| TURBO | Apr 2023 (early) | $80M | A Memecoin designed by GPT-4 |
| Chillguy | Nov 2024 | $60M | A "chill guy" character |
| Goatseus Maximus | Oct 2024 | $130M | Created by an AI |
These tokens all started on Pump.fun and gained 50-1,000x after graduating. But set against 6 million-plus failed tokens, the success rate is still extremely low.
Pump.fun's near-zero barrier to launching a token has enabled a wave of malicious project teams to mass-produce tokens, wash trade, lure in retail buyers, and dump on them. Pump.fun's position is "we provide the tools, users decide what to do with them," but in practice the platform has fueled a rug-pull culture within Memecoins.
In November 2024, a user livestreamed a staged suicide scene as a "marketing stunt" while creating a token on Pump.fun. The incident drew widespread attention, and Pump.fun was criticized for "tolerating extreme behavior." Pump.fun urgently disabled its livestream feature and began reviewing content.
Starting in the second half of 2024, both the EU and the U.S. SEC began paying attention to Pump.fun. In January 2025, a UK regulator issued a warning stating that Pump.fun "facilitates unauthorized financial activity." The Pump.fun team relocated overseas (reportedly to jurisdictions like the Bahamas or Seychelles).
Tokens on Pump.fun are vulnerable to sniper bots — bots detect a newly created token and buy in instantly, so by the time ordinary users buy in, the price has already been pushed up. This "bot versus human" imbalance puts ordinary users at a structural disadvantage.
Pump.fun's success has spawned a wave of imitators:
| Platform | Chain | Notable Feature | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pump.fun | Solana | The original | Dominant |
| Sunpump | Tron | Tron's version | Moderate |
| Daos.fun | Solana | DAO-ified Memecoins | Growing |
| Pump.fun (Base version, not yet launched) | - | Planned | - |
| Memepad | BSC | BSC's version | Cold |
| Clanker | Base | Farcaster plus AI | Growing fast |
| Believe | Base | Similar to Pump.fun | Early stage |
| Virtuals | Base | AI agent tokens | Growing fast |
As of April 2026, Solana is still the biggest battleground for Memecoin launches, but Base's Clanker and Virtuals are starting to grab meaningful market share.
Q: Can you actually make money creating a token on Pump.fun?
Most ordinary token creators lose money (98% of tokens go to zero). But as a "tool operator" or "insider project team," some people do genuinely profit through Pump.fun:
Q: Can you make money trading tokens on Pump.fun?
Overall it's a negative-sum game. Most of the money flows from retail traders to sniper bots, project teams, and the Pump.fun platform itself. About 60% of users lose money long-term.
Q: How does Pump.fun make its money?
A 0.02 SOL creation fee per token, a 1% buy/sell fee, and a 6 SOL graduation fee. Monthly revenue runs $80-150 million. Given the team's small size (roughly 20 people), it's an extraordinarily high-margin project.
Q: Do Pump.fun tokens keep rising after graduating to Raydium?
A minority do, most don't. On-chain data shows roughly 10-15% of graduated tokens keep climbing afterward. Most get dumped immediately after graduation as early snipers cash out.
Q: How do you find the next 100x project on Pump.fun?
It's extremely difficult. A few approaches: 1) monitor Pump.fun's "King of the Hill" (the highest market-cap token); 2) track KOL recommendations; 3) check the creator's wallet history (have they created successful tokens before); 4) look at how "unique" the token is (visuals, concept, narrative). Even with all of that, the hit rate is still under 5%.
Q: Can Pump.fun itself rug-pull the tokens on it?
No. Pump.fun's platform mechanics are a "neutral tool" — token creation, trading, and graduation are all fully automated, and the platform never holds user funds. But the platform itself could be shut down by regulators; if that happens, already-created tokens remain tradable on the Solana chain.
Q: How much does it cost to launch a token on Pump.fun?
A fixed 0.02 SOL (about $4). This creation fee is non-refundable. If the token graduates, an additional 6 SOL (about $1,100) graduation fee is deducted from the bonding-curve proceeds.
Q: Can you use Pump.fun in mainland China?
Technically it's accessible (via VPN). But crypto trading is banned in mainland China, so using Pump.fun there is illegal. This site does not recommend that mainland users use it.
Q: Is the Pump.fun contract itself safe?
Pump.fun's platform contract has been reviewed by audit firms and is relatively safe. But the individual tokens launched on Pump.fun (out of tens of millions of possible tokens) are mostly high-risk, and safety needs to be evaluated case by case.
Q: Will Pump.fun eventually get replaced?
Possibly. After 27 months, Pump.fun is the clear leader in Memecoin launchpads, but it has plenty of imitators, and the center of gravity for Memecoins keeps shifting between Solana and Base. If the Base ecosystem keeps growing, launchpads like Clanker and Virtuals could eat into Pump.fun's market share.
Pump.fun on-chain data (pump.fun), Solana Beach, Birdeye, Dune Analytics (Pump.fun dashboard), Solscan, and analysis reports on Pump.fun from various crypto research firms.