Power Transition: The Rise and Fall of Memecoin Issuance Platforms

"The king is dead, long live the king."

This sentence echoed in the French court of the 18th century. It reveals an eternal truth about power: power never belongs to individuals, but flows like water, always finding new containers. Former emperors may quickly become dust of history, and the change of power is often swift, ruthless, and inevitable.

Today, the memecoin issuance platform on the Solana chain is witnessing this ancient power transfer ceremony. The former dominant player Pump.fun has seen its market share plummet from 88% to 13% in just one month, while the new challenger Let'sBONK has captured 86% of the market.

This is not only another manifestation of volatility in the crypto world but also a typical case of an empire's collapse: when the ultimate moat of attention is ignored, even the largest first-mover advantage can vanish in an instant.

The Rise and Fall of the Pump.fun Empire

Pump.fun was founded in January 2024 by three young people in their 20s, reshaping the issuance logic of meme coins with a disruptive concept: just upload an image, give it a name, click a few times, and you can issue a token for less than $2, without any programming knowledge.

This satisfies a fundamental impulse to transform "worthless" into "valuable". In the crypto world, this is not a fantasy, but a business model. By January 2025, Pump.fun generated over $458 million in revenue, with thousands of new coins launched daily, reaching a peak daily income of over $7 million.

More importantly, it has become synonymous with Solana memecoin culture, firmly controlling the cultural discourse. However, it is precisely one of its most innovative features—live streaming—that has sparked a series of issues.

In November 2024, some users engaged in extreme behavior during live broadcasts to gain attention, including simulating self-harm and threatening suicide. The most serious incident involved a minor who threatened their family with a gun in front of the camera, merely to inflate the coin price.

Pump.fun was forced to shut down its live streaming feature, but its reputation has already taken a hit. Weekly revenue plummeted by 66%, public opinion turned against it, and competitors began to take advantage of the situation. Faced with declining revenue and competitive pressure, Pump.fun decided to save itself by issuing tokens (ICO).

The ICO was technically successful—raising $500 million from over 10,000 wallets in 12 minutes, along with $700 million in private placements. However, there were issues with token distribution: over 200 wallets hit the $1 million cap, and the top 340 buyers accounted for 60% of the share. All sold tokens were fully unlocked, with only a 48 to 72-hour transfer restriction.

The token price initially surged 75% to $0.007, but the enthusiasm quickly cooled. Within weeks, it fell 60%, continuously hitting new lows. The tokenomics are 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 timeline is unclear.

Although users have generated nearly $750 million for the platform, there are no immediate community rewards; at the same time, private investors dumped tokens worth $160 million on the exchange, resulting in significant selling pressure.

The final blow was the co-founder's public announcement that the long-promised airdrop "will not happen in the foreseeable future." This decision was announced at a time when community trust was at its most fragile, resulting in a 15% drop in token prices within 24 hours.

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The Rise of Let'sBONK

When Pump.fun is in trouble, Let'sBONK is quietly building everything that their competitors lack: transparency, community orientation, and clear communication.

Currently, Let'sBONK's daily revenue has reached $1.3 million, while Pump.fun is only $254,000. Annualized, Let'sBONK's monthly revenue is as high as $434.92 million, while Pump.fun is $267.25 million.

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 has plummeted from a peak of over 7 million dollars in January back to the levels of September 2024.

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

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The Victory and Defeat of Attention Economy

Pump.fun once took the lead thanks to network effects—developers issued tokens there because traders were there; traders were there because the hottest memecoins were launched there. This flywheel effect seems unstoppable.

But attention is fragile. It is not like the moats of traditional businesses—economies of scale, switching costs, regulatory barriers—once trust collapses, the user's mindset can disintegrate instantly. A live-stream incident gives users reason to try alternative platforms. Let'sBONK immediately becomes 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, chaotic interfaces, and marginalization.

Realizing the crisis of life and death, Pump.fun launched a nearly desperate counterattack. First, they increased the token buyback ratio from 25% of daily income to 100%. Second, they introduced 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.

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

The reward mechanism of Pump.fun revolves solely around trading volume, while Let'sBONK has built a truly user-interest-aligned ecological reward system. The BONK reward program allows users to lock up funds for 6 to 12 months, proportionally receiving revenue shares from the product ecosystem. The longer the lock-up period, the higher the multiplier. The better the product performance, the more returns for users.

Users can earn "Bonk Points" through trading, purchasing, or issuance of 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 like they are part of a larger mission.

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

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A Bigger Picture

In the digital market, user switching costs are close to zero, and a dominant position can vanish in a matter of months. 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 the most vulnerable moment of Pump.fun's reputation. 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 starts to reverse. Developers follow traders, and traders chase the hottest projects, accelerating the platform's decline.

Does Pump.fun still have a chance to turn things around? Although its market share has sharply declined, 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 the capital to experiment and outlast competitors. Their platform has previously supported hundreds of thousands of project issuances without collapsing. Even with the drop in market share, they still generate over $250,000 in revenue daily, approaching $100 million annually, plus a massive capital reserve, so they still have a solid foundation.

They are the pioneers of this category. Transforming coin issuance from programming to a few clicks of the mouse has earned them lasting brand recognition. The first-mover advantage is not something that can 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 repurchase ratio has been increased to 100%; user incentives have been launched. These are not signs of surrender, but rather a counterattack.

The most likely scenario is not a complete collapse, but market fragmentation. There are rarely permanent monopolists in the crypto space. It is more likely that Let'sBONK will become the main platform, dominating the issuance and revenue of tokens, while Pump.fun will transform 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 issues or rely on financial incentives to retain users, but also rebuild trust and reclaim cultural high ground. This means achieving an open and transparent, community-centered token economy structure, and it may even require a complete overhaul of the leadership to completely distance itself from past controversies.

When a ruler loses legitimacy, no amount of resources or rituals can restore dignity. Only new leadership can earn the old respect. Sometimes, to continue a cause, it is necessary to hand over power to newcomers.

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