Transition of Power: The Rise and Fall of the Solana On-chain Memecoin Launch Platform

"The king is dead, long live the king." This phrase echoed in the Palace of Versailles on May 10, 1774. Louis XV had just died, and those nobles who had once bowed to him immediately turned to the next king. This is not cold-bloodedness, but rather the instinct for survival.

The French have a deep understanding of the nature of power: power never belongs to an individual; it flows like water and always seeks new vessels. This statement is not a lament for the deceased, but a confirmation of the new king's status. The monarch of yesteryears may today just be a footnote in history. The change of power comes swiftly, ruthlessly, and inevitably.

Power requires this indifference. Empires rise on the bones of their ancestors, and new rulers inherit old thrones, in an endless cycle. Today, the memecoin launch platform space on the Solana is showcasing a modern version of this ancient ritual.

A month ago, Pump.fun was the undisputed leader, holding 88% of the market share. Now, it has only 13% of the market, while the emerging challenger Let'sBONK has captured 86% of the share.

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This is not just another example of volatility in the crypto world. It is also a typical case of the collapse of an empire: when you ignore that attention is the ultimate moat, even the greatest first-mover advantage can instantly vanish.

The Rise of Pump.fun Empire

To understand the decline of Pump.fun, one must first understand its former strength. In January 2024, three young people in their 20s launched this platform, overturning the issuance logic of meme coins with a single sentence: "Upload an image, give it a name, click a few times, and you have issued a coin, costing less than $2, without any code."

It fulfills a basic impulse: to transform "worthless" things into "valuable" ones. In the crypto world, this is not a fantasy, but a business model. By January 2025, Pump.fun generated over $458 million in revenue, launching thousands of new coins every day, with peak daily revenue exceeding $7 million.

More importantly, it has won the attention battlefield and become synonymous with Solana memecoin culture. On Crypto Twitter, issuing tokens is almost equivalent to using Pump.fun. It not only occupies the infrastructure but also firmly controls the cultural discourse.

However, the tragedy began with one of its most "innovative" features: live streaming.

It was originally intended to allow token issuers to promote their tokens in front of the camera, but things quickly got out of control. Starting in November 2024, in an effort to attract attention, some began to engage in extreme behaviors during live broadcasts: simulating self-harm, threatening suicide, and abusing animals. The most serious incident involved a minor user brandishing a shotgun in front of the camera to threaten their family, all just to inflate the coin price.

Pump.fun was forced to urgently shut down its live streaming feature, but its reputation has already been damaged. Weekly revenue plummeted by 66% in an instant, public opinion turned against them, and competitors began to take advantage of the situation. Faced with declining revenue and competitive pressure, Pump.fun made a decision that seemed smart but was actually fatal: to issue tokens (ICO) for self-rescue.

This ICO is technically considered a success—raising $500 million from over 10,000 wallets in just 12 minutes, along with a round of $700 million in private placement.

However, a deeper analysis reveals the re-emergence of an old problem: over 200 wallets have hit the $1 million cap, and the top 340 buyers have consumed 60% of the share. All sold tokens are fully unlocked (no lock-up), but a transfer restriction period of 48 to 72 hours has been set.

Nearly half of the participants only funded their wallets within 24 hours—this pattern may suggest an organized buying strategy or simply reflect retail investors' strong interest in this issuance.

The token price initially soared by 75% to $0.007, but the enthusiasm quickly cooled down. It dropped by 60% within weeks, continuously setting new lows, displaying a typical "death spiral" trend. The tokenomics itself is also very aggressive, with only 33% allocated to public and private offerings, while the remaining 67% is controlled by the project team, and the allocation schedule is unclear. 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; at the same time, private investors sold tokens worth $160 million to the exchange, creating significant selling pressure.

The last straw 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 in the industry," creating huge market expectations. However, at the time when community trust was at its most fragile, they announced the cancellation of the airdrop. The token price plummeted by 15% within 24 hours. It’s not that the airdrop itself is so important, but the cost of failing to fulfill promises is extremely deadly.

The Rise of Bonk

While Pump.fun is continuously stepping on landmines, 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 dollars, while Pump.fun is only 254,000 dollars, a difference of 5 times. Annualized, Let'sBONK's monthly income amounts to 434.92 million dollars, while Pump.fun is 267.25 million dollars.

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 increasing. Meanwhile, Pump.fun's revenue plummeted from a peak of over 7 million dollars in January back to the levels of September 2024.

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Since the ICO, the PUMP token has dropped 60% in market value, while BONK has remained relatively stable, maintaining a market value of $2.1 billion. Let'sBONK will use 1% of its revenue each week to buy back BONK, supporting this ecosystem token that predates the platform and already has a foundation.

Attention Economy

Pump.fun once seized the initiative through network effects—developers issue tokens there because traders are there; traders are there because the hottest memecoins are launched there. This flywheel effect spins faster and faster, seemingly unstoppable.

But attention is fragile. It is not like the moats of traditional enterprises—economies of scale, switching costs, regulatory barriers—once trust collapses, the user mentality can disintegrate instantly. An incident during a live broadcast gave users a reason to try alternative platforms. Let'sBONK quickly became the "clean" choice, a platform without historical baggage.

It's like when Myspace lost to Facebook. Myspace had features and scale, but lost the cultural narrative. Facebook became the platform for "real users," while Myspace became synonymous with spam, a chaotic interface, 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 daily, far exceeding Let'sBONK's daily buyback of $13,000 (only 1%), it also indicates 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 situation.

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The issue is not at the tactical level, but at the strategic level. No amount of buybacks or incentive plans can restore lost trust, nor can they recapture the attention of users who have already shifted their focus.

The reward mechanism of Pump.fun revolves solely around trading volume, while Let'sBONK has established 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 generated by ecological products. 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 to make people trade", but about "paying to allow users to build together".

Users (including project parties) can obtain "Bonk Points" through trading, purchasing, or issuing tokens. 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 that they are participating in a larger mission.

While Pump.fun is still exploring ICOs and delaying airdrop fulfillment, Let'sBONK has already provided a structured reward system for core users. In the crypto world, capital will always flow towards better incentive mechanisms.

A Bigger Picture

In traditional industries, market leaders often hold their positions for decades. General Motors dominated automobile manufacturing for half a century, and IBM has controlled enterprise computing for nearly as long. In the digital market, however, the cost of switching for users is close to zero, and a dominant position can vanish in a matter of months.

An investigation has revealed 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 due to the fact that they built a fundamentally superior product, but rather because they entered the market at the moment 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's rise also begins to reverse. Developers follow the traders, and traders chase the hottest projects, causing the platform's decline to accelerate.

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

They do have some advantages: the $1.2 billion in financing 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 especially important in an environment where other new platforms are prone to failure under high pressure. Even with a decline in market share, they still generate over $250,000 in revenue daily, approaching $100 million annually, plus a substantial capital reserve, so they are still in a strong position.

They are the pioneers of this category. Transforming the issuance of tokens from programming into a few clicks of the mouse has earned them lasting brand recognition. The first-mover advantage 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 introduced. These are not signs of surrender, but rather a counterattack.

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The most likely scenario is not a complete collapse, but market fragmentation. In the crypto space, permanent monopolists rarely emerge. What is more likely is that Let'sBONK becomes the main platform, dominating the issuance and revenue, while Pump.fun transforms into a niche platform with loyal users, securing a place through its interface, features, or ecosystem.

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

The French court has long understood a principle: when a king loses legitimacy, no amount of gold, silver, or ceremony can restore his dignity. Only a new ruler can win over the old.