In early February 2026, Pump.fun announced the acquisition of the Vyper trading terminal and its full integration into Terminal, accelerating expansion against the backdrop of pressure on existing trading demand. This transaction is not an isolated event, but rather another move following the previous acquisition of Padre, which was reshaped into Terminal, forming a continuous acquisition chain of “Padre→Terminal→Vyper.” More significantly, on one hand, the entire Vyper technical team is integrated into Terminal, indicating a concentration of core capabilities; on the other hand, information from a single source shows that existing Vyper users can enjoy a 90% cash back or discount in the first month, combined with team migration, releasing a strong user siphoning effect and multi-chain ambition. Under the mainstream narrative of open and self-organizing diffusion in multi-chain ecosystems, Pump.fun chooses to promote multi-chain terminal expansion through centralized acquisitions. How far this model can go and whether it is sustainable has become the biggest suspense surrounding this transaction.
Continuous Moves from Padre to Vyper
● Timeline and Positioning: According to public information, Pump.fun had previously acquired the trading terminal Padre and reshaped it into Terminal after integration, positioning it as a more general and professional user-oriented trading interface. This latest acquisition of Vyper, with Terminal taking over its infrastructure and functions, is equivalent to continuing to “stack modules” on the original terminal, continuously absorbing new capabilities and user groups under the Terminal shell.
● Team Integration and Structural Concentration: Research briefs indicate that after this acquisition, the entire Vyper technical team is integrated into Terminal, and the relevant infrastructure is also migrated to the Terminal system. This means that Pump.fun is not just buying the product shell or brand, but is incorporating the team, code, and operational experience into the same technical stack, which is beneficial for unifying development rhythm and product roadmap, but will also lead to a high degree of concentration of multiple product lines at a single terminal entry.
● Intent of a Unified Multi-Chain Entry: From the continuous acquisition of Padre and then Vyper, both “packed” into Terminal, it appears that Pump.fun is integrating multiple terminal brands into a unified multi-chain trading entry. Compared to maintaining multiple independent brands, it resembles the creation of a “multi-chain console”: different chains and strategies are abstracted into a single experience at the front end, thereby increasing user stickiness and data collaboration efficiency, facilitating the subsequent distribution of more traffic and products within a single interface.
● Expansion Path of “Buying Instead of Building”: Many tools and terminal projects typically start from a single chain or single function, gradually expanding through self-research iteration and open collaboration; however, Pump.fun has chosen to quickly fill gaps by acquiring existing terminals. This strategy of “buying ready-made capabilities” is more costly in terms of funds but allows bypassing the lengthy accumulation period from scratch, directly acquiring mature teams and user bases, betting on speed and acquisition integration capabilities in a competitive and time-limited environment.
Vyper Team Integration and EVM Shortcomings Addressed
● Technical Direction from a Tweet Perspective: According to a public social media tweet, “Vyper team members will promote EVM/Base support and cross-chain transaction enhancements,” this statement can currently only be viewed as the opinion of the tweet source, rather than an official technical roadmap declaration. This statement still provides important clues: Pump.fun hopes to leverage the capabilities of the Vyper team to strengthen support for the EVM system and Base network within Terminal, while also making deeper upgrades to the cross-chain interaction experience.
● EVM and Base in the Solana Narrative: Pump.fun is deeply tied to the Solana ecosystem narrative, but mainstream liquidity in the crypto market has long been concentrated on EVM-based chains and their extended networks, with Base also receiving widespread attention due to its ecological activity and growth potential. For a platform that started in Solana, if it wants to handle larger transactions and funds, addressing EVM and Base support is a must; otherwise, the story of the multi-chain terminal will become a “half-chain terminal,” making it difficult to reach broader strategy and asset combination needs.
● Possible Directions for Upgrading Cross-Chain Experience: Cross-chain transactions currently face pain points such as experience fragmentation, complex asset bridging, and opaque fees and failure rates across most terminals. By integrating the Vyper tech stack into Terminal, there is theoretically an opportunity to upgrade in several directions: for example, abstracting multi-chain liquidity within the same interface, reducing user manual bridging steps, and optimizing cross-chain paths through smart routing. Although specific implementation methods have not yet been disclosed in an official white paper, strengthening the cross-chain transaction experience is likely to be one of the core focuses after integration, based on technical genes and existing product forms.
● Information Sources and Uncertainty: It is important to emphasize that the statement regarding “EVM/Base support and cross-chain enhancements” currently comes only from public social media and industry inferences, rather than from formal technical roadmap documents released by Pump.fun or Terminal. Readers should view these directions as high-probability trends and market expectations, rather than locked-in product commitments, and should await more authoritative roadmap explanations and actual product iteration validations.
90% Cash Back: The First Wave of Migration After Acquisition
● Activity Design and Information Sources: Research briefs indicate that Vyper users, after being integrated into Terminal, can enjoy a 90% cash back or discount in the first month; this information comes from a single source and has not yet been fully cross-verified through multiple channels. Such a high proportion of cash back or fee reduction is clearly a key incentive used immediately after the acquisition to “lock in old users and drive migration,” and it is also a bold gamble by Pump.fun to demonstrate its determination to integrate.
● Siphoning Old Users and External Traffic: For existing Vyper users, such a high short-term subsidy will significantly lower their psychological cost of migrating to Terminal, even if it only enhances their motivation to “give it a try.” Meanwhile, this level of activity may also create a siphoning effect on users of other trading terminals and related products: when the market sees that a certain terminal can provide an almost “free” trading environment in the first month, some high-frequency and arbitrage users are likely to migrate temporarily to take advantage of the subsidies and lower execution costs.
● Short-Term Logic and Risks of Subsidy for Migration: The logic of exchanging high subsidies for user migration is common in the internet and crypto industries, aiming to quickly enlarge the user base and create liquidity and depth for a “lively scene.” However, the risk lies in: after the activity ends, if Terminal cannot provide a sufficiently competitive combination of features, real depth, and stable experience, users may quickly churn after the subsidies are withdrawn, leading to a “subsidy farming” or “short-term profit-seeking” rather than a truly settled trading ecosystem.
● Cautious Attitude Towards Subsidy Scale and Sustainability: Currently, there is a lack of systematic public explanation regarding the specific subsidy scale, covered categories, and duration of the 90% cash back, and the outside world should not interpret it as a long-term, stable commitment. A more rational interpretation is that this is a phased market action following the acquisition, and whether it will be extended, reduced, or replaced with other incentive mechanisms in the future will depend on the actual migration effects and cost-benefit balance; investors and users should maintain cautious expectations.
The Game of Trading Terminals Amidst Mergers and Contraction Periods
● Valuation Pressure on Tools in a Contraction Cycle: A report from Gate Research Institute indicates that we are currently in a contraction period for exchange ETF products, which to some extent reflects the cooling of overall trading demand and risk appetite. For tools and terminal tracks, this background means that both valuation and growth expectations are under pressure, with new user growth slowing, old user activity declining, and independent terminals facing significantly increased difficulty in financing and monetization, leading to a polarized survival space.
● The Squeeze Between Leading Platforms and Third-Party Terminals: Leading centralized trading platforms often come with powerful trading interfaces and derivative terminal functions, along with native liquidity and risk control systems, making it necessary for third-party terminals to provide excess value in professional features, strategy support, or multi-platform aggregation capabilities to secure a foothold. In this context, Pump.fun’s choice to expand its terminal landscape through acquisitions seems to be a counter-cyclical move to increase its tool track amid shrinking traffic and demand, using terminal integration to hedge against competitive pressures from single platforms.
● Structural Defense of Giants as a Contrast Group: At the same time, Binance is advancing its cooperation layout with tokens pegged to multiple national fiat currencies (specific countries and cooperation structures are not elaborated in this article), indirectly confirming that industry giants, when faced with obstacles to trading volume growth, will choose to open a second curve through structural defense and new revenue sources. In this context, Pump.fun is betting on a different path: rather than reshaping the issuance carrier, it aims to compete for a higher “entry share” in existing trading through integration and efficiency improvements at the terminal level.
● A Fierce Product Integration Gamble in a Shrinking Environment: Thus, Pump.fun’s acquisition of Padre and Vyper and their integration into Terminal is not merely about “expanding capacity,” but rather a bet on product integration, unified entry, and execution efficiency in the face of giant pressure and a shrinking trading environment. The question is: in a period where the overall pie is shrinking, competition between terminals will become more brutal, and products that are poorly integrated or vaguely positioned are likely to be quickly marginalized after the withdrawal of subsidies, adding higher execution pressure to every acquisition.
The Pull Between Centralized Acquisitions and Multi-Chain Freedom
● The Contradiction Between Open Multi-Chain Narratives and Resource Concentration: The multi-chain ecosystem has long emphasized openness, composability, and modularity, encouraging different teams to evolve freely in their respective strengths and then connect through protocols and interfaces. By acquiring, Pump.fun has concentrated the originally independently evolving terminal resources into the Terminal hub, which introduces a clear centralization integration logic in a narrative that highly emphasizes “decentralization” and multi-path diffusion, a tension that is hard to avoid.
● The Rhythm and Cost for Acquired Teams: For acquired teams like Vyper, joining the Pump.fun system may indeed accelerate resource, brand, and traffic acquisition, potentially speeding up the pace of technical and product iteration. However, the cost is that route autonomy and community voice are inevitably weakened, and the space for long-term product experimentation that could have been centered around their own community will be constrained by unified strategies and priorities, representing a structural change for development teams accustomed to high autonomy.
● The Convenience and Single Point Risk of a Unified Terminal: From the perspective of developers and professional traders, a unified, multi-chain aggregated terminal is clearly more attractive in terms of entry experience, strategy deployment, and data integration, as it can reduce the friction costs of frequently switching between different terminals. However, this also leads to an increase in single point risk: when too many functions and links are concentrated in Terminal, any technical accidents, compliance risks, or strategic missteps will significantly amplify the impact, and user reliance on a single terminal will become a new source of systemic risk.
● Key Signals to Observe Going Forward: To determine whether this centralized integration path can reconcile with the narrative of multi-chain freedom, there are several signals worth continuous attention: first, after absorbing Vyper, will Terminal retain and develop Vyper's original distinctive features and user culture, rather than simply flattening them; second, will it further open up the API and plugin ecosystem, allowing third-party developers to build composable modules on top of the terminal; third, will governance introduce more community participation and feedback mechanisms, providing substantial influence channels for the acquired teams and users? These factors will determine whether Terminal becomes a “black box entry” or an “open hub.”
The Next Act in the Terminal Competition: How Far Can Acquisitions Go?
Pump.fun has constructed a high-density multi-chain trading terminal acquisition path through the acquisition of Padre, the creation of Terminal, and the acquisition and integration of Vyper. This path occurs during a period when exchange ETF products are entering a contraction phase and the valuation of tool tracks is under pressure, making it particularly counter-cyclical: while others are retracting their lines, it chooses to leverage and extend the terminal matrix, attempting to hedge against the volatility of a single ecosystem with a centralized product entry.
In the short term, the effectiveness of this strategy is mainly reflected in two points: first, relying on aggressive subsidies like 90% cash back to drive Vyper users to migrate to Terminal, while also attracting external high-sensitivity trading users; second, leveraging the capabilities of the Vyper team to address key functional shortcomings in EVM/Base support and cross-chain experience, providing a more complete product puzzle for the multi-chain terminal narrative. The long-term success or failure depends on two more challenging propositions: first, whether it can organize sufficient real and sustainable liquidity across multiple chains; second, after integrating multiple teams and technical stacks, whether it can truly achieve efficient product integration rather than falling into redundancy and internal friction.
Currently, there are several key uncertainties surrounding this path that need continuous validation: for example, the specific timeline for the shutdown of Vyper services and user migration is yet to be confirmed by official sources; how effective the first-month subsidy activity is in attracting new users and retaining them; and whether Pump.fun will continue to expand Terminal's functional boundaries through a new round of acquisitions or shift towards a more open cooperation model. These variables will determine whether this series of moves is a starting point or a peak.
A more neutral judgment is that there is no a priori answer to whether acquisitions can outperform self-research and open collaboration. If Pump.fun can complete integration and create a truly advantageous multi-chain terminal before the next wave of trading prosperity, it has the opportunity to become a platform-level entry in the new cycle; conversely, if subsidies fail to convert into depth and integration fails to translate into efficiency, it is not without the possibility of finding itself on the “acquired” side in a larger wave of industry mergers.
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