The industry's largest meme issuance platform, pump.fun, is set to publicly raise $1 billion at a valuation of $4 billion, which is no longer news. As the meme coin craze fades and the once-flourishing golden dog era is no more, there are many voices of concern in both the Chinese and English circles that pump.fun's issuance of tokens will siphon off a large amount of liquidity, suggesting that this could mark a temporary end for the meme coin sector.

As a phenomenon-level application leader in the crypto space, pump.fun has been a money-printing machine for a considerable period. However, with the retreat of liquidity and narratives, pump.fun is also looking for ways to transform, such as learning from traditional internet platforms to create native internet celebrities for traffic. So, is pump.fun still worth a $4 billion valuation now?

Is a $4 billion valuation justified?

Pump.fun's total historical revenue is currently about $758 million, making it one of the most profitable projects in the Web3 space. According to DefiLlama data, pump.fun's revenue over the past 30 days is $41.61 million. Projects with revenue above this are either stablecoins and their related entities (Tether, Circle, and Tron) or DEXs (PancakeSwap, Hyperliquid), and there are no Solana ecosystem projects that can compete with it.

Calculating the annualized revenue based on the last 30 days' revenue multiplied by 12 gives approximately $500 million, which corresponds to a price-to-sales ratio of 8 times at a $4 billion valuation, which is not very outrageous. Of course, the market's skepticism is more about "the current pump.fun cannot support this valuation," rather than "the glorious pump.fun cannot support this valuation."

Pump.fun's revenue fluctuates based on the overall market conditions of meme coins. The peaks of pump.fun's new token "graduation rate" were in mid to late November last year and mid-January this year, with weekly new token "graduation rates" reaching 1.67% and 1.62%, which is currently double.

Correspondingly, the average daily revenue during these two periods was at least over $4 million, basically 3-4 times the current level, with some days exceeding $10 million in revenue. The daily number of new tokens issued was also at least over 50,000, which is currently double.

Whether pump.fun chooses to issue tokens at its peak or now, it will definitely face criticism. If it were at the peak, the valuation would not be what it is now, and people would accuse them of destroying the meme coin bull market. If it is now, people would criticize them for adding fuel to the fire, extracting liquidity, and worsening the already low meme coin market. But if we consider it from another angle, will meme coins ever see the same level of enthusiasm again? Or will they, like inscriptions, never recover? Additionally, bull markets have their ways of operating, and bear markets have theirs. As the project party, pump.fun's actions in the current poor market environment show us that they still have hope to revitalize the meme coin market and maintain their leading position with some form of moat when a possible meme coin bull market returns.

Understanding Divergence Between Chinese and English Circles

In the Chinese circle, aside from the current hot topic of "issuing tokens" surrounding pump.fun, the general focus is either on how pump.fun's token issuance will drive up some "platform concept" meme coins, such as $alon related to founder @a1lon9 or the "mascot" $cupsey, or more attention is given to new platforms like letsbonk.fun.

There are two particularly interesting viewpoints. The first comes from KOL Crypto Kanda @thecryptoskanda, who believes that pump.fun's "mass media" attribute is unique, and when it comes to capturing the attention of the short-lived younger generation of users, pump.fun is the king.

Although @thecryptoskanda's viewpoint is somewhat controversial, there is indeed a very interesting phenomenon that has formed between meme players and traditional media. Players trading meme coins, in their pursuit of profit, have inadvertently become one of the most efficient groups of "news reporters" in the world. Meanwhile, traditional media reporters, who may not trade coins at all, always report on various happenings in the crypto space, unintentionally becoming "ambassadors" for meme coins.

The second viewpoint comes from @memekiller365 regarding a recent "meme war map" posted by @brainletcto. With $SPX continuously rising from the bottom over the past month and recently hitting a historical high, there is a competitive dynamic between established meme coins and new meme coins emerging from platforms like pump.fun and letsbonk.fun, with each side operating independently.

What about the English circle? The English circle doesn't have a very distinct understanding; they continue to play and have fun, as usual. However, they have paid more attention to pump.fun's live broadcasts, and some of pump.fun's community tokens also give the impression that, in the current market environment, pump.fun has slowed down.

From "Fast-Paced Casino" to "Slow-Paced Media"?

Gainzy, an Israeli, is currently the hottest streamer on pump.fun, who recently had to frequently hide in bomb shelters due to the ongoing conflict.

In the past month, more and more clips of Gainzy's live streams have gone viral in the English circle. As the popularity rises, the price of the live tokens he issues has also been increasing.

In May, pump.fun founder Alon commented on Gainzy, saying, "He single-handedly revived Ethereum, pump.fun live broadcasts, and hair removal clinics," and referred to him as "the ansem of the last bull market."

Then Ansem jokingly asked, "Do you know who Gainzy is?" With over 12,000 votes, 34.8% of voters still chose "I don't know." Even now, the Chinese circle may still be more familiar with pump.fun's ecological stars at the ansem stage and indeed not familiar with Gainzy.

Who is Gainzy? According to a tweet by @StarPlatinumSOL, Gainzy quit his job in 2017 to work full-time in the crypto space, first getting involved in controversy as a dev of a rug project called Obsidian during the ICO bull market. Later, he created a trading bot and sold it in 2018.

Gainzy was also one of the earliest KOLs to promote FTX, earning up to $50,000 in commissions in a month at his peak. Before his live broadcasts on pump.fun, he was a sponsored streamer for Rollbit, where he promoted $RLB while secretly dumping it, causing further controversy.

ZachXBT also criticized Gainzy at the time, "Why did you tweet that you bought $400,000 of $RLB and then within a day, you dumped it like crazy?"

Gainzy initially rose to fame because he was frustrated by ETH's performance and went on a live stream to rant that Vitalik and the entire Ethereum Foundation were "SBs." This live stream occurred on May 8. Following this live stream, ETH began to rise, and the English circle jokingly claimed that Gainzy helped solidify ETH's bottom and saved Ethereum.

His live streams do not involve chain scanning or dog fighting; he simply smokes one cigarette after another while sharing his views on cryptocurrencies. From his streaming style, he resembles a "CSGO streamer named Eggplant who made money but still streams like a grassroots." As his popularity grew, figures like Pudgy Penguins CEO Luca Netz and Yuga Labs co-founder Garga.eth have also joined him for live streams.

The latest star of pump.fun's live broadcasts is @rasmr_eth. Like Gainzy, he is also a major KOL, with nearly 110,000 followers on Twitter and over 10,000 followers on Twitch. He kicked off his appearance with a presentation like Steve Jobs, explaining in detail why he wanted to bring his talent to pump.fun.

$rasmr briefly surpassed a market cap of $15 million after its launch, but it has now fallen below a market cap of $6 million.

There are rumors that pump.fun paid Gainzy and rasmr to come live stream on pump.fun. This rumor cannot be confirmed, but pump.fun's emphasis on live streaming can also be seen from the $1 million streamer incentive that started at the end of May.

In addition to these streaming stars, the $HOUSE token, which surged significantly at the end of April, has also brought forth new influencers such as @Fapital3, @bigtonebigtone, and @Primed25. In the aforementioned "meme war map," $neet, a small coin currently valued at less than $5 million, is included due to the strong support from these three individuals. The coin once surged to a market cap close to $25 million.

"TYBT," an abbreviation for "Thank You Big Tone," was one of the hottest memes on pump.fun last month. However, recently Big Tone has taken a break, and he can only be seen in small groups and occasional Twitter Spaces.

Since the beginning of this year, many platforms for Web3 live streaming have emerged, but pump.fun is undoubtedly the most internet-savvy among all Web3 live streams. While people's impressions may still linger on the chaotic era of pump.fun live streaming, the current pump.fun seems to be striving to move away from the early wild growth phase, specifically cultivating its own traffic matrix system. In fact, the current pump.fun gives a vague impression of a PVE environment, with large coins like $FARTCOIN exceeding a market cap of $1 billion, and smaller coins like $neet and $chillhouse valued at less than $10 million, where there is no conflict between communities, frequent interactions, and a strong sense of unity.

(As of the publication of this article, the market cap of $chillhouse has surpassed $10 million, peaking at nearly $18 million.)

Pump.fun founder Alon also seems to be paying considerable attention to these small coins that showcase different aspects. In an interview with Decrypt, he specifically mentioned $neet, as this coin organized an offline "No Work" protest on Wall Street using creator incentives provided by the platform. After the official Twitter account of the coin expressed gratitude in a tweet, Alon retweeted it.

$chillhouse has swept through various pump.fun live rooms and KOLs' Twitter DMs with its viral slogan "Thoughts on chillhouse?" This has become one of the hottest memes in the pump.fun ecosystem recently, characterized by its absurdity, much like a group of drunken people scribbling on the street. Alon also retweeted related tweets about $chillhouse.

The "No Work" $neet and the viral absurdity of $chillhouse both resonate strongly with young people. Pump.fun still has the best sense of the Z generation's subculture in the crypto space, which serves as a "soft moat" for them.

Of course, from creator incentives to streamer incentives, the criticism of pump.fun in the market has never ceased. Many players believe that pump.fun is struggling in business and has finally decided to loosen its purse strings. However, from the perspective of the project party doing business, having a hot market for golden dogs every day is certainly the best, but one must also think of strategies during quieter times. Recruiting influencers, promoting newcomers, and building their own traffic matrix are essential to spark the next wave of market frenzy. After all, a market filled with golden dogs always starts with one or two leading golden dogs. As meme coins have developed to this point, a brainwashing meme or directly transporting memes from Web2 has limited stimulation of players' consumption desires, making it hard for players to envision significant growth potential (the well has run dry).

So what to do? Pump.fun's current answer is to capture young people's identity (with $house and $neet), not solely relying on hot topics or fleeting meme coin outputs, and to attempt to support some memes that resonate with young people's interests through continuous memes (like $chillhouse) and live streaming that caters to the tastes of degens in the crypto space.

Conclusion

I do not believe that pump.fun's issuance of tokens will mark the end of meme coins; it may represent a temporary end, but it will never be the end of meme coins. We have always seemed to like attributing the failure of a sector to a specific project, such as saying that Blur destroyed NFTs. However, if a sector can be destroyed by a single project, it indicates that the sector was already dead.

There are countless young people in the world who want to change their destinies, and cryptocurrency remains the most enduring and relatively attractive place for young people. The stock market is not lacking in narratives, as people naturally believe the stories written by elites. Meme coins will not die because grassroots individuals also need their own stories to change their destinies.

After the tide recedes, I actually hope that pump.fun's "media" can go further. When "coin stocks" draw attention away from the crypto space and become a playground for elites, the wild yet youthful essence of pump.fun becomes much more relatable.

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