Written by: White55, Mars Finance
A 'Meme Casino' with income fluctuating a hundredfold, financing $600 million at a $4 billion valuation, with VCs and retail investors buying at the same price—what is this, financial innovation or the most glamorous harvesting script in crypto history?
Early this morning, a surrealist play unfolded on the cryptocurrency exchange Gate: the official website suddenly launched a countdown page for the public sale of Pump.fun token PUMP, clearly stating that it would start issuing 15 billion tokens (15% of total supply) on July 12, priced at 0.04 USDT, raising $600 million within 72 hours. The page's lifespan was shorter than the lifecycle of meme coins, and its deletion speed was comparable to the platform's lightning-fast operation of destroying chives' wallets.
This is not an accidental leak; it is a meticulously planned 'technical trailer' by crypto capital.
After all, when Pump.fun, a 'casino platform' with an annual income of $700 million, suddenly needs to raise $600 million at a $4 billion valuation, it must create some drama.
This capital game, packaged as a fair public offering, is essentially the leftover scraps of the VC feast wrapped as 'community welfare'. Meanwhile, the chives hold up 'participating in history' glow sticks, unaware that they are subscribing to a VIP ticket to the meat grinder.
I. Casino Economics: From SOL Minting Machine to Chives Crushing Machine
Back to January 2024, three young people in their twenties created Pump.fun. They were tired of being victims of meme coin scams, so they decided to open their own casino.
Zero-threshold token issuance + joint curve harvesting, this combo instantly ignites the crypto world: users can create tokens for free, and the platform earns with a 5% transaction fee; when the token market cap exceeds $100,000, it automatically lands on the Raydium exchange, achieving a seamless transition from gambling table to slaughterhouse.
The data witnesses this absurd carnival:
In one and a half years, issuing 5.7 million tokens, accounting for 71% of Solana chain's daily token issuance.
On January 2, 2025, daily income reached $14 million, comparable to a money printing machine.
On March 9, 2025, income plummeted to $110,000, a drop of over 99%.
This rollercoaster-like income curve perfectly illustrates what is meant by an 'emotion-driven economy'—when the market is in FOMO, it is alchemy that turns stone into gold; when the hot money recedes, it is even more awkward than a naked swimmer on the beach.
And the real black humor lies in user data: In May 2025, only 3.6% of 594,000 active wallets made a profit of over $500, with more than half of the users losing money, some losses reaching millions of dollars.
Where is the decentralized financial revolution? It is clearly Las Vegas casinos moving onto the blockchain, and the dealer's winning probability game packaged as a 'financial democratization' fairy tale.
II. Valuation Magic: When the Bubble Wears a Haute Couture Suit
$4 billion valuation—this number is enough to shock traditional financial elites. After all, the stablecoin giant Circle’s U.S. IPO valuation was only $7.2 billion, while Pump.fun's business essence is a highly cyclical speculative service.
The platform has its own set of 'market cap management' metaphysical logic:
Price-to-Sales ratio (P/S) 5.63 times: Compared to DeFi protocols like Uniswap, it seems reasonable but deliberately overlooks the essence of meme income as fleeting as a candle in the wind.
Price-to-Earnings ratio (P/E) 11.4 times: Assuming tokens can take half of the income, but the white paper has yet to specify the dividend distribution mechanism.
FDV/Income ratio 64 times: Far exceeding real cash flow-generating protocols like Raydium and PancakeSwap.
More sophisticated is the design where VCs and retail investors buy at the same price. $200 million in the private round, $800 million in the public round, all executed at a unified valuation of $5 billion.
The apparent fairness hides the anxiety of early investors desperately needing an exit channel—after all, the platform has accumulated $182 million worth of SOL to exchange for stablecoins, and the liquidity extraction operation is comparable to a crypto version of the Three Gorges Dam.
When researchers denounce 'the valuation of MEME launch platforms exceeding DeFi blue chips as a signal of industry value collapse', KOLs shout for a $4 billion valuation benchmarked against Hyperliquid.
They selectively forget: Hyperliquid is a derivatives protocol, while Pump.fun's competitor is actually the $190 million market cap Bonk—this is equivalent to labeling a vegetable market as a gold shop balance and then selling potatoes by the gram.
III. Financing Maze: $600 million for a new scythe?
Faced with the soul-searching question of 'use of funds', Pump.fun's blueprint is filled with ironic performance art:
The founder once claimed to build an 'investable social platform' to compete with Instagram and TikTok. In plain language, it means upgrading Pump.fun from a casino to a casino + influencer live broadcast complex, after all, real dealers online issuing tokens can harvest another round of metaverse chives.
The technological upgrades in reality are even more blackly humorous:
Launching a self-built AMM (Automated Market Maker): addressing the pain point of 'the gambling table not being slippery enough, the chives running too fast'.
Reviving the live broadcast function: previously shut down due to users performing dangerous acts like burning themselves in toilets while speculating on coins.
Developing anti-fraud tools: Despite attackers still disguising as Solana-pumpfun-bot on GitHub to steal wallets
Ironically, while the platform claims to build a 'Meme ecological closed loop', competitor Bonk.fun has already seized market share with a community self-governance model. After all, in the crypto world, the subtext of 'representing the community' is 'harvest a bit more gently', while Pump.fun's VC scythe is already glaringly sharp.
IV. Crypto Apocalypse: When Casinos Become the Highest Valued Enterprises.
Pump.fun's capital feast reflects the sharpest value rift in the crypto world:
The attention economy shouts 'Traffic equals value', packaging FOMO as a new paradigm.
Fundamentalists denounce this as an 'industry innovation disaster', implying that capital is murdering the ideal of blockchain technology.
A deeper metaphor lies in the data: In 2024, the total market cap of meme coins evaporated by $40 billion, while Pump.fun aims to erect a $4 billion valuation monument on the ruins. This is reminiscent of the surreal scene in 2008 during the subprime mortgage crisis, where Goldman Sachs employees counted cash while discussing the 'necessity of financial innovation'.
When the platform calls 52.5% user losses 'community ecology', when daily trading volume drops by 60% is beautified as 'market sedimentation', when regulatory warnings (like the UK FCA ban) are interpreted as 'honor medals'—the entire industry is losing its reverence for the essence of value. This carnival, named 'financial democratization', will eventually become a case of collective hysteria written into textbooks.
Conclusion: A song of the crypto era (Mountain Sheep)
The big pie becomes a peak, and contracts rage like fury.
The winding path of imitation traps.
Looking at the coin circle, feeling hesitant.
Pumpfun Scythe Devours the Remains
The frenzy of new coins has turned into soil.
When the state flourishes, the chives suffer.
When the state falls, the chives suffer.
When Zhang Yanghao wrote 'When the state flourishes, the people suffer; when the state falls, the people suffer' in the fourteenth century, he could not have imagined that seven hundred years later, blockchain casinos are reenacting history with smart contracts. The verdict of 'Pumpfun Scythe Devours the Remains, the frenzy of new coins has turned into soil' has already revealed the essence of this capital game.
When Gate exchange's 404 page becomes the best performance art, when VC's private placement shares await the chives to take over, when KOL's flattery drowns out rational voices—the ultimate paradox of the crypto world emerges: the more devout the belief in decentralization, the more efficient the centralized harvesting.
Future historians looking back at the summer of 2025 might record: that year, casino owners were no longer satisfied with just taking a cut; they directly let gamblers raise funds to build new casinos.
And while the chives recite 'When the state flourishes, the chives suffer; when the state falls, the chives suffer', they line up to subscribe to the casino's IPO preferred stocks.
Because in this industry, the pain itself has become the most addictive consumption.
