Can Pump.fun Tell a New Story Next Year?

Yael

/Dec 18, 2025

Key Takeaways

• Pump.fun's revenue dropped significantly in 2025, prompting a need for new strategies.

• The introduction of revenue sharing for creators aims to foster long-term engagement rather than one-time profits.

• Legal and regulatory challenges pose ongoing risks that could impact Pump.fun's operations and market access.

• Innovations like PumpSwap and the Glass Full Foundation are steps towards building a more resilient ecosystem.

• Effective governance and trust-building measures are crucial for the platform's future success.

Pump.fun has been the beating heart of Solana’s memecoin culture—equal parts product, phenomenon, and lightning rod. As we look toward 2026, can it move beyond “launch, pump, repeat” and evolve into a more durable creator economy? This piece draws on the discussion sparked by Simon (@simononchain) and TechFlow’s translation of a Delphi preview on Pump.fun’s year ahead, plus recent on‑chain and market developments that shaped 2025. For context, see the Odaily recap of that perspective at “Where is Pump.fun’s next new narrative?” which frames Pump as resilient but searching for direction.

2025 reset: resilience under pressure

Revenues cooled materially from early‑year highs. By July 2025, Pump.fun’s monthly revenue fell to roughly $25 million—down about 80% from its January peak—per DefiLlama data cited by Cointelegraph. That slowdown mirrored fading memecoin intensity on Solana as retail enthusiasm cycled and bots/arbitrage compressed edge. See Cointelegraph’s summary and live metrics on DefiLlama.
- Reference: Cointelegraph’s “Pump.fun hits lowest monthly revenue in 2025,” and DefiLlama’s Pump.fun dashboard.
The product footprint expanded anyway. In March, the team launched PumpSwap, a native AMM that keeps “graduated” token liquidity in‑house rather than shipping it to external DEXs—signaling a shift from launchpad to full trading stack. CoinDesk’s launch day reportage details the strategy and its implications for fee capture and UX.
- Reference: CoinDesk on PumpSwap.
Legal and regulatory headwinds intensified. A proposed class action filed in the Southern District of New York alleges securities violations tied to tokens launched via the platform. Meanwhile, the UK FCA placed Pump.fun on its warning list in December 2024, leading to a UK geoblock. These developments will shape distribution, exchange access, and compliance posture into 2026.
- Reference: CoinDesk on the SDNY suit; FCA warning page.
Security scars still matter. The May 16, 2024 exploit, which Pump.fun attributed to a former employee, highlighted operational risk around migration and bonding‑curve flows. Cointelegraph’s post‑mortem recap and HashDit’s incident digest remain instructive for risk controls during volatile liquidity events.
- Reference: Cointelegraph on the insider exploit; HashDit incident summary.

Creator economics: from hype to habit

Through 2025, Pump.fun experimented with shifting incentives from short‑term exits toward durable engagement:

Revenue sharing for creators. In May, Pump.fun began sharing 50% of PumpSwap protocol revenue with coin creators—effectively 5 bps (0.05%) of trading volume, claimable in SOL. The move aims to reward ongoing stewardship rather than one‑time mints.
- Reference: CoinDesk and The Block on creator fee sharing.
Backstopping selective liquidity. Amid a revenue trough, the team unveiled the “Glass Full Foundation,” injecting liquidity into chosen ecosystem tokens to stabilize order books and reinforce perceived signal. Coverage from Yahoo Finance and CoinDesk chronicles the early effects.
- Reference: Yahoo Finance and CoinDesk on Glass Full.

The bet: if creators can fund operations via recurring fees—and if liquidity isn’t purely mercenary—memecoin launches can evolve into creator‑led micro‑communities with some staying power. That aligns directionally with Delphi’s framing of Pump’s search for a sustainable creator economy flywheel.

Product direction: distribution is the moat

A credible “new story” likely hinges on owning distribution surfaces:

Native trading rails. PumpSwap keeps liquidity, fee flows, and curation signals inside the product, tightening the loop between launch and trading. That reduces friction versus external migration and makes it easier to experiment with pricing, rebates, and listings.
- Reference: CoinDesk on PumpSwap.
Social surfaces via Solana Actions and Blinks. Actions turn transactions into portable, shareable endpoints; blinks bring those transactions directly into feeds, widgets, and bots. For a launchpad whose edge is virality, these primitives shrink the distance between content and on‑chain action.
- Reference: Solana Foundation’s Actions and Blinks overview and developer guide.
Mobile. A dedicated app for iOS and Android increases touchpoints with creators and traders, especially in emerging markets where mobile is primary.
- Reference: CoinDesk on the mobile app.

The governance question

If 2024–2025 was about shipping rails, the next chapter may require governance—lightweight but real. Two pressure points stand out:

Curation and reputation. Discovery is noisy; bot‑driven bundling and “soft rugs” have eroded trust. A governance‑oriented listing framework—allowlists for reputable creators, quadratic or stake‑weighted signaling, slashing for repeat bad actors—could make discovery legible without abandoning permissionless ethos.
Policy and compliance levers. With lawsuits and jurisdiction filters in motion, governance that can ratify region‑specific rules, fee rebates, or developer standards may reduce regulatory friction while preserving global reach. This isn’t about turning Pump into a slow DAO—it’s about codifying high‑impact policy switches with transparent, auditable processes.

What would count as a genuinely new story?

Sustainable creator income, not just exits. If fee sharing plus better curation yields measurable cohorts of creators earning recurring SOL without predatory tokenomics, Pump graduates from “casino” to “creator monetization layer.”
- Reference: CoinDesk on fee sharing.
Safer and smarter funnels. Integrations that default to transaction simulation, anti‑MEV protections, per‑wallet spend limits, and context‑aware warnings could blunt the edge of bot‑led predation without neutering spontaneity.
Trustable reputation rails. Verifiable credentials, proof‑of‑humanity taps, or lightweight KYC for “pro creators” could coexist with open mints—signaling risk tiers to retail while preserving permissionless access for experimentation.
Real distribution beyond Crypto Twitter. Wider adoption of Actions/Blinks in messaging, creator platforms, and streaming surfaces can move “investable content” closer to mainstream. Pump’s past live‑streaming experiments drew scrutiny for moderation; a relaunch grounded in clear standards would need to avoid prior pitfalls.
- Reference: WIRED’s reporting on live‑stream frictions; Le Monde’s coverage of moderation controversies.

Risks that won’t simply vanish

Legal/regulatory. U.S. litigation is ongoing; the UK remains closed off under FCA guidance. Outcomes will inform venue choices, exchange listings, and how aggressively Pump can court creators in regulated markets.
- Reference: CoinDesk on class actions; FCA warning.
Reputation and safety. High rug‑rate narratives (see Solidus Labs’ claims summarized by CoinDesk) and publicized scams have durable half‑lives. The product must demonstrate that creator fee sharing and curation actually improve survival rates.
- Reference: CoinDesk on fraud statistics debate.
Market cyclicality. 2025 reminded everyone that memecoin volumes are reflexive. Even with better rails, creator income will fluctuate with liquidity cycles, exchange policy, and macro.

Practical takeaways for creators and traders

Prefer self‑custody. If you’re trading volatile coins or managing treasury funds, hardware‑secured keys dramatically reduce phishing and device‑level compromise risk. OneKey can help here: it isolates private keys in secure hardware, adds human‑verifiable signing flows, and supports Solana’s modern primitives (like Actions) without exposing seed phrases online—useful when trading from browsers, bots, or mobile.
Use transaction simulation and spending caps. Before interacting with any mint or swap, simulate calls in a supported wallet and limit per‑transaction allowances.
Verify creators and contracts. Check contract addresses from official channels; treat look‑alikes and “urgent” CT threads with suspicion, especially when blinks are involved.
Track real liquidity and fees. DefiLlama’s Pump.fun dashboards are a useful reality check when narratives outrun numbers.
- Reference: DefiLlama’s Pump.fun page.

So, can Pump.fun tell a new story?

Yes—but it has to be about more than throughput and attention. The contours are visible: revenue sharing that pays for ongoing work, distribution that collapses the distance between content and on‑chain action, and governance that makes curation, safety, and policy choices legible. Pump’s own moves in 2025—launching PumpSwap, rolling out fee sharing, and experimenting with liquidity support—are the right instincts. The open question is execution: can those primitives counteract bots, rebuild trust, and retain creators through the next liquidity cycle?

If you plan to participate in this next chapter—launching or trading creator tokens—treat operational security as a first‑class feature of your workflow. A hardware wallet like OneKey pairs well with high‑velocity Solana flows: you keep keys offline while signing fast and frequently, reducing the risk that the next viral trade becomes your next avoidable loss.