An initial coin offering, raising $500 million in the time it takes to brew a pot of coffee. You’d think we were back in 2017.
Pump.fun’s token sale sold out in just 12 minutes on Saturday, capping off one of the fastest and largest raises in recent crypto memory.
But while the ICO was a technical success, the sale quietly wrapped with 25 billion fewer tokens sold than originally planned.
The project had previously said 150 billion PUMP tokens, out of a 330 billion total ICO allocation, would be offered to the public at $0.004 each.
That implied a $600 million raise. But onchain data and the live dashboard confirm just 125 billion tokens were sold, pulling in $500 million — about 83% of the originally stated public allocation.
No announcement or explanation was given for the reduction.
Chaos, controversy, competition
In the past year alone, Pump.fun has generated over $720 million in fees from thousands of rapid-fire token launches, while critics say it profits from speculative churn and leaves retail users holding the bag.
Its livestream feature, designed to let creators promote their memecoins in real time, became a magnet for chaos. Users performed stunts, threatened pets, and even staged suicide attempts in a bid to pump their tokens’ value.
Pump.fun’s ICO also comes as the memecoin market enters a cooling phase. Since peaking at $127 billion in December, the segment has slumped to $56 billion.
The platform has also started losing ground to rising competitor LetsBonk, a newer memecoin generator that now hosts twice as many daily token launches.
Still, Pump.fun is pressing ahead with its vision. “Our plan is to kill Facebook, TikTok, and Twitch. On Solana,” the team wrote earlier this week.
Kyle Baird is DL News’ Weekend Editor. Got a tip? Email at [email protected].
