Pump.fun's token sale has 'bad optics' and now seems in limbo

Solana memecoin generator Pump.fun grabbed attention Monday when it apparently planned to sell 150 billion $PUMP tokens for $600 million.

Critics quickly attacked the effort. A listing on the Gate crypto exchange mysteriously vanished. No matter what happens next, it wasn't a good look, according to some crypto advocates.

"Some users were surprised by $Pump doing a token sale versus an expected large airdrop that other popular apps like Hyperliquid has done," said The Block's Research Director Steven Zheng. "While an airdrop is still likely in the works, a token sale to raise $600 million on top of the $700 million $Pump has already made since its launch can definitely be viewed as bad optics."

At the time of publishing, neither Pump.fun nor Gate had made an official statement on their X account regarding the token sale and its future.

According to the now deleted listing, Pump.fun had planned to sell 150 billion tokens on July 12 at $0.004 $USDT per token. With a total supply of 1 trillion tokens that would have translated into a $4 billion valuation. Last month, Pump.fun was apparently planning a $1 billion token sale, according to a report.

Pump.fun has been one of the industry's main beneficiaries of the memecoin craze that began last year as crypto entered a bull market. The memecoin generator provides an inexpensive and easy way to create Solana-based tokens. The protocol brought in over $700 million in revenue since launching last year.

"Pump.fun was the darling of the 2025 crypto bull run, but the memecoin frenzy has fizzled out now, so it may find demand for the token sale is much more lackluster than it is anticipating," Space ID marketing executive Alice Shikova said in an email. "It may see some success because of the brand it has managed to build over time, but many other high-profile projects have struggled with their token launches due to the lack of demand and liquidity, so it's a somewhat risky move."

Many prominent voices across crypto were less diplomatic when it seemed certain Pump-fun would sell tokens.

"Pump.fun launching a token is like a corrupt president running for office and promising not to steal this time," said X user @0xCabana, a self-proclaimed crypto researcher and Polkadot advisor who posted on the social media platform on Tuesday.

Besides the alleged fizzling of the memecoin market, Pump.fun has fallen in the rankings among generators. Recently LetsBonk usurped Pump.fun as the top generator by tokens created, according to a Dune analytics dashboard. LetsBonk recently surpassed $Pump in tokens launched, graduations, and revenue.

While memecoins don't appear to be going away anytime soon, there are quite a few builders in crypto who see the tokens' make-a-quick-buck, no-real-utility nature as a distraction that is detrimental to the growth of the digital assets industry.

"Crooked exchanges preying on their own users with perpetuals and Pump.fun sucking the life out of DeFi has ruined crypto," Noones App CEO Ray Youssef posted to X. "Newbies come in, get robbed and never come back."