"The king is dead, long live the king" - The power transition of the Solana meme issuance platform

"The king is dead, long live the king." This phrase echoed in the Palace of Versailles in 1774. Louis XV had just passed away, and the nobles immediately turned to the new king. This is not a display of cold-bloodedness, but rather a manifestation of the instinct for survival.

The French are well aware of a truth about power: it never belongs to individuals; it flows like water into new containers. This statement is not a lament for the dead, but an acknowledgment of the new king's rule. Former monarchs can quickly become footnotes in history. The transition of power is always swift, ruthless, and inevitable.

Power requires this indifference. Empires rise on the remains of their predecessors, and new rulers inherit the old thrones. This cycle continues. Today, the meme issuance platform on the Solana chain is staging a modern version of this ancient ritual.

A month ago, Pump.fun held an 88% market share, but now it has only 13%, while the new challenger Let'sBONK has captured 86% of the market.

This is not only another manifestation of the "volatility" in the crypto world, but also a typical case of the collapse of an empire: when neglecting attention becomes the ultimate moat, no matter how great the first-mover advantage is, it can instantaneously vanish.

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The Rise and Fall of the Pump.fun Empire

To understand the fall of Pump.fun, one must first comprehend its former strength. The platform was launched in January 2024 by three young individuals in their 20s, with a single phrase that overturned the issuance logic of memes: "Upload a picture, give it a name, click a few times, and you can issue a coin for less than $2, with no programming required."

It satisfies an underlying impulse: to turn something "worthless" into something "of some value." In the crypto world, this is not a delusion, but rather a business model. By January 2025, Pump.fun generated over $458 million in revenue, launching thousands of new coins daily, with peak daily revenue exceeding $7 million.

More importantly, it has won the attention battlefield - becoming synonymous with Solana memecoin culture. On Crypto Twitter, issuing coins defaults to using Pump.fun. It not only occupies the infrastructure but also firmly controls the cultural discourse.

The tragedy began with one of its most "innovative" features: live streaming. Originally intended to allow issuers to promote their tokens in front of the camera, the situation quickly spiraled out of control. Starting in November 2024, in order to gain attention, some individuals engaged in extreme behaviors during live streams: simulating self-harm, threatening suicide, abusing animals, and the most serious incident involved a minor who threatened their family with a gun on camera, all just to pump up the coin price.

Pump.fun was forced to urgently shut down its live streaming function, but its reputation has been ruined. Weekly revenue plummeted by 66%, public opinion backlash occurred, and competitors seized the opportunity. Faced with declining revenue and competitive pressure, Pump.fun made a decision that seemed smart but was actually fatal: issuing the coin ( ICO ) for self-rescue.

This ICO was technically successful - raising $500 million from over 10,000 wallets in just 12 minutes, plus $700 million in private placements. However, a deeper analysis reveals the old problems resurfacing: over 200 wallets filled the $1 million cap, and the top 340 buyers consumed 60% of the share. All sold tokens are fully unlocked ( with no lock-up ), only setting a transfer restriction period of 48 to 72 hours.

Nearly half of the participants funded their wallets within 24 hours - this may suggest an organized buying strategy, or it could simply be retail investors' strong interest in this issuance.

The token price initially surged 75% to $0.007, but enthusiasm quickly faded. It dropped 60% within a few weeks, continuously hitting new lows, exhibiting a typical "death spiral" trend. The tokenomics itself is also very aggressive, with only 33% allocated to public and private offerings, and 67% held by the project team, with an unclear allocation schedule. Of this 33%, 18% is specifically reserved for private placement shares for institutional investors.

Despite users generating nearly $750 million for the platform, there are no immediate community rewards; meanwhile, private investors offloaded $160 million worth of tokens to the exchange, creating significant selling pressure.

The last straw that broke the camel's back was when co-founder Alon Cohen publicly announced that the long-promised airdrop "will not happen in the foreseeable future."

For months, the project has hinted that the upcoming rewards "will be more generous than anyone else in the industry," creating huge market expectations. However, at a time when community trust was at its most fragile, they announced the cancellation of the airdrop. The token price plummeted 15% within 24 hours. It is not that the airdrop itself is so important, but the cost of breaking promises is extremely fatal.

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The Rise of Let'sBONK

As Pump.fun continuously encounters issues, Let'sBONK is quietly building everything that its competitors lack: transparency, community orientation, and clear communication.

Currently, Let'sBONK's daily revenue has reached 1.3 million USD, while Pump.fun is only 254,000 USD, a difference of 5 times. Annualized, Let'sBONK's monthly revenue reaches 434.92 million USD, while Pump.fun is 267.25 million USD.

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

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

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Attention Economy

Pump.fun once seized the opportunity due to network effects - developers issue coins there because traders are there; traders are there because the hottest memecoins are launched there. This flywheel effect keeps gaining momentum and seems unstoppable.

But attention is fragile. It is not like the moats of traditional businesses - economies of scale, switching costs, regulatory barriers - as soon as trust collapses, the user's mindset can disintegrate in an instant. A live broadcast incident gives users reason to try alternative platforms. Let'sBONK immediately becomes the "clean" choice, a platform without historical baggage.

It's like how Myspace lost to Facebook back in the day. Myspace had the features and scale, but lost the cultural narrative. Facebook became the platform for "real users", while Myspace became synonymous with spam, chaotic interfaces, and marginalization. Realizing the crisis of survival, Pump.fun launched a nearly desperate counterattack.

First, they increased the token buyback ratio from 25% of daily revenue to 100%. While this means that approximately $254,000 is used for buybacks each day, far exceeding Let'sBONK's daily buyback of $13,000, which accounts for only 1%, it also represents that Pump.fun is using all of its revenue for buybacks rather than for platform growth.

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

The issue is not at the tactical level, but at the strategic level. No matter how many buybacks or incentive programs there are, they cannot restore lost trust, nor can they refocus the attention of users who have already shifted away.

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 and receive a proportional share of the revenue from the ecosystem of products such as BonkBot and BonkSwap. The longer the lock-up period, the higher the multiplier. The better the product performance, the more returns users receive. This is not about "paying for people to trade", but "paying for users to build together".

User (, including the project party ), can obtain "Bonk points" through trading, purchasing, or coin issuance. 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 participating in a larger mission.

While Pump.fun was still exploring ICOs and dealing with airdrop disappointments, Let'sBONK had already provided a structured reward system for its 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 often maintain their position for decades. A certain automobile manufacturer dominated car manufacturing for half a century, and a certain tech giant has controlled enterprise computing for nearly as long. 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.

Investigations reveal that Dylan Kerler, co-founder of Pump.fun, was involved in a "pump and dump" scheme in 2017 - precisely the behavior that Pump.fun claims to eliminate. In an industry built on trust and memes, the collapse of reputation equates to a survival crisis.

The success of Let'sBONK is not because they built a fundamentally superior product, but because they entered the market at a time when Pump.fun's reputation was at its most vulnerable. 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 once propelled Pump.fun to prominence also starts to reverse. Developers follow traders, traders chase the hottest projects, and the platform's decline accelerates.

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

They do have some advantages: the $1.2 billion in funding has bought them time and provided them with the capital to experiment and outlast competitors. Their platform has supported hundreds of thousands of project launches without crashing - this is particularly important in an environment where other new platforms can easily fail under pressure. Even with a decline in market share, they still generate over $250,000 in revenue daily, approaching $100 million annually, along with a huge capital reserve, so their foundation remains strong.

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

Recent actions also indicate that they have not given up: Pump.fun 2.0 has added real-time data updates and one-click trading; the buyback ratio has 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 total collapse, but market fragmentation. There are very few permanent monopolists born in the crypto space. More likely, Let'sBONK will become a major platform, dominating the issuance and revenue of coins, while Pump.fun will transform into a niche platform with loyal users, occupying a place thanks to its interface, features, or ecosystem.

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

The French court has long understood a principle: when a king loses legitimacy, no amount of gold and silver or ceremonies can restore dignity. Only a new ruler can earn the old respect. Sometimes, for the continuation of the kingdom, the crown must be passed to someone new.

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