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In today’s Watch List report, we cover Pump Fun.

In less than two years, Pump Fun has produced nearly $900m in revenue and almost $200M in token buybacks, providing a glimpse into what “consumer crypto” can look like.

In this week’s report, we analyze the numbers that powered its rise, while checking in on core KPIs relative to peak euphoria in Q1 of this year.

Is Pump a “one-cycle pony” — or the beginning of the first true onchain consumer mega-app?

Disclaimer: Views expressed are the author’s personal views and should not be relied upon as investment advice.

Let’s go.

Fundamentals Update

Active Traders

Data: The DeFi Report

The Pump Fun protocol currently earns fees from two primary sources.

Bonding Curve Fees

Pump earns a 1% protocol fee on all bonding curve purchases. The bonding curve is where new tokens are traded prior to “graduation” to the Pump Swap DEX.

Graduation occurs when the tokens issued on the bonding curve (80% of the supply) are sold out, and enough liquidity is available to migrate to the Pump Swap DEX.

Over the last 90 days, the bonding curve has averaged 106k active addresses/day — down 60% from Q1 of this year (peak euphoria for Pump/Solana).

Pump Swap DEX

The Pump Swap DEX is where tokens migrate to after “graduating” from the bonding curve. The protocol earns .05% of each trade on the DEX.

Over the last 90 days, the DEX is averaging 219k active addresses/day.

New vs Recurring Traders

Data: The DeFi Report

Over the last 90 days, 37% of trading addresses were “new” addresses, with 63% “recurring” addresses — a similar user dynamic that Pump has had throughout its existence (Q1 peak euphoria period reveals 36% “new” addresses).

User Retention

Data: The DeFi Report

12 weeks of recent user retention data reveal some interesting results.

Pump is averaging 482k active addresses per week since early September. It’s retaining an average of 24% of those users over a 1-week period.

New user retention falls to 12.4% after 4 weeks, and 11.4% after 8 weeks.

Key Takeaway

It may not seem like it, but these are fantastic user retention numbers when compared to web2 counterparts:

Marketplace/fintech week one retention = 10-15%
Gaming one week retention = 7-12%
Consumer Social one week retention = 15-20%
Week four retention across all categories = 5-10%
Week eight retention across all categories = 2-5%

What about bots?

Web2 bot traffic tends to inflate “top of the funnel” metrics (due to spam clicks, sign-ups, and ad traffic), destroying retention.

Onchain bots behave differently.

Bots trade repeatedly.
Can be price agnostic.
Show up in returning user metrics.

Put simply: bots are paying customers.

Given that we are far from the euphoria seen in Q1 of this year on Pump, this data signal product market fit to us. We’ll be keeping an eye on this, especially as onchain sentiment declines.

Tokens Launched

Data: The DeFi Report

Pump is averaging 18.3k tokens launched/day over the last 90 days. That’s down 55% compared to Q1.

Tokens “Graduated”

Data: The DeFi Report

Over the last 90 days, 1.77% of new launches on Pump Fun ultimately “graduate” to the Pump Swap DEX (the number jumps to 4.1% over the last 30 days).

Key Takeaway

During peak euphoria (Q1), on average, just 1.07% of tokens graduated. It appears we are seeing higher-quality launches as onchain speculation wanes. That’s interesting and worth keeping an eye on — especially as interest in memecoins wanes.

Trading Volume

Data: The DeFi Report

Across the bonding curve and pump swap DEX, the protocol is generating $312 million of trading volume/day over the last 90 days. That’s a 16.4% increase over Q1 (pump swap was not live at that time), and a 10.8% market share on Solana (including private AMMs).

For reference, the leading Solana DEX (HumidiFi, a private DEX) is averaging $1.24 billion of volume over the last 90 days.

Bonding curve volumes make up roughly 40% of total trading volumes for Pump. That’s an interesting stat, considering that less than 2% of the tokens graduate to the Pump Swap DEX, yet account for 60% of trading volume.

Revenue

Data: The DeFi Report

Since its inception, Pump Fun has generated:

$828 million in bonding curve fees (launched in April of ‘24).
$54.5 million in DEX fees (launched March of ‘25).
$11.2 million from Padre, a trading app/terminal that Pump acquired on October 24th. Since its inception, Padre has generated $159m in fees (it launched in April of this year).

Total fees (all three products) averaged $1.28m/day over the last 30 days. Not bad for bear market conditions. In total, the protocol has done nearly $900 million over the last 19 months. Its price/sales ratio for the last 12 months is 2.27.

For reference, Meta has a LTM price/sales of 8.83. Nvidia is 23. Robinhood is 29. And Coinbase is 10.

Key Takeaway

Pump Fun is one of the fastest consumer products to reach $900 million in history. It took Facebook five years to generate that much revenue. Twitter 8 years. Snapchat 5 years. Roblox ten years. And Tik Tok three years.

Not to mention, Pump Fun did this with no ads. No sales team. No user-acquisition budget. And a team smaller than a high school basketball roster.

This is insane by web2 standards. It highlights the global scale that app developers can reach on crypto rails at lightning speed.

The key question moving forward: are memecoins a flash in the pan, similar to NFTs? Will Pump Fun suffer the fate of OpenSea?

More later in the report.

Token Economics

Total Supply: 999,989,313,535
Circulating Supply: 590,000,000,000 (59% circulating)

Price vs Marketcap

Data: The DeFi Report

We share the above chart to highlight the challenge for investors as tokens unlock during bear markets. Pump’s market cap is down 46% from its mid-September peak.

The token price is down 67%.

Why?

Two billion community and ecosystem tokens unlocked on November 12th.

Token Allocation

Data: The DeFi Report

Token Unlocks

ICO: fully unlocked
Community: 76% unlocked, with two billion released in mid-November. The remaining tokens will unlock in July of ‘26.
The Team: 100% locked with the first 25% unlock coming via a cliff in June of ‘26. The remaining tokens will unlock linearly over 36 months through June ‘29.
Existing Investors: 100% locked with the first 25% unlock coming via a cliff in June of ‘26. The remaining tokens will unlock linearly over 36 months through June ‘29. This is the same unlock schedule as the team.
Livestreamers: 100% unlocked.
Liquidity & Exchange: 100% unlocked.
Ecosystem Fund: 100% unlocked.
Foundation: 100% unlocked.

Buybacks

Data: The DeFi Report

Total buybacks in units: 46,024,318,185 (4.6% of the total supply)
Total buybacks in $: $198 million (90% of revenues since they turned on buybacks in July)

This is one of the most aggressive buyback programs in all of crypto. Buybacks of this scale are proving that Pump has:

A real business with real cash flows.
A structural bid in the market (averaging $1.7m/day).
A commitment to returning value to its tokenholders and aligning incentives.

Tokenholder Distribution

Data: The DeFi Report

Total tokenholders: 110.9k
Tokenholders with less than 1k units ($3): 59,927
Tokenholders with 1k - 10k units ($3-$30): 24,701
Tokenholders with 10k - 100k units ($30 - $300): 16,461
Tokenholders with 100k - 1m units ($300 - $3,000): 7,039
Tokenholders with 1m - 10m units ($3,000 - $30,000): 2,149
Tokenholders with 10m - 100m units ($30k - $300k): 553
Tokenholders with 100m - 1b units ($300k - $3m): 174
Tokenholders with 1b+ units: ($3m +): 54

Key Takeaways

91% of wallets holding PUMP hold less than $300 of the token, suggesting broad retail participation, albeit with a small % of the total supply.
Only 9% of wallets hold > $300 of the token.
The top 20 holders control 82% of the supply. We believe these holders are largely team and early investors, who are locked until July of ‘26 — a key date to keep an eye on as $246 million worth of tokens will come online.

Closing Thoughts

Pump Fun’s rise over the last few years remains one of crypto’s clearest examples of product–market fit driven by speed, simplicity, and speculation. A tiny team built one of the fastest-growing consumer apps in history — without ads, without a sales org, and without a traditional go-to-market playbook.

Product Integrations

The team's ability to ship quickly and integrate strategically up/down the tech stack (Token Launch Interface for Creators + Pump Swap DEX infrastructure + Padre Trading Terminal) demonstrates a clear objective to own the entire user flow of the “crypto consumer” use case.

We think the app will evolve in the years to come as the team seeks to onboard creators and broaden its “social experience” via livestreaming use cases — potentially pulling creators from other web2 platforms (via superior monetization opportunities through tokens and trading fees).

Risks

Key risks include token concentration among top wallets ($247m of unlocks in July of next year), a young (and wealthy) leadership team, and the challenge of sustaining user attention in a high-churn environment.

Competition will increase, but Pump’s brand, war chest, and first-mover advantage matter.

At the end of the day, Pump Fun’s success will depend on the success of memecoins as an asset class. It’s our opinion that they are here to stay. And that their use, utility, and integration with online social experiences is just beginning.

Fair launches. Fresh participation from legitimate creators. And innovative value-sharing models with fans. We’re looking to see movement in these areas. As well as user protections for sniping and market manipulation.

We think a bear market could reveal quite a bit about the future prospects for Pump Fun. That’s why it’s on The Watch List.

If you’d like to be notified if/when we add Pump back to our portfolio (we traded PUMP, exiting with 180% gains over the summer), you can sign up for TDR Pro here (use code TDRPRO30 for a 30% discount on the annual plan).

Take a Report.

And Stay Curious.

Disclaimer: Individuals have unique circumstances, goals, and risk tolerances, so you should consult a certified investment professional and/or do your own diligence before making investment decisions. The author is not an investment advisor and may hold positions in the assets covered. Certified professionals can provide individualized investment advice tailored to your unique situation. This research report is for general educational purposes only, is not individualized, and as such should not be construed as investment advice. The content contained in the report is derived from both publicly available information as well as proprietary data sources. All information presented and sources are believed to be reliable as of the date first published. Any opinions expressed in the report are based on the information cited herein as of the date of the publication. Although The DeFi Report and the author believe the information presented is substantially accurate in all material respects and does not omit to state material facts necessary to make the statements herein not misleading, all information and materials in the report are provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis, without warranty or condition of any kind either expressed or implied.

The Watch List: Pump Fun

Is Pump Fun a "one cycle pony" or the next onchain consumer mega app?

Topics Covered