The Return Of ICOs With Pump.fun, 500 Million Dollars Raised In A Flash

We thought memecoins were buried, and their favorite laboratory – Pump.fun – permanently relegated to oblivion. But against all odds, the beast is still breathing. Worse: it roars. In 12 minutes, Pump.fun raised 500 million dollars, reigniting discussions about the future of ICOs and the fascination power that the most frivolous cryptos still exert. All amid controversy, public contradictions, and a persistent scent of algorithmic manipulation.

The financial feat of Pump.fun: golden masks and backstage fire

12 minutes. That’s how long it took Pump.fun to raise 500 million dollars during its ICO. The PUMP token, offered at $0.004, found buyers for 125 billion units. The memecoin creation platform on Solana took the opportunity to remind everyone it wasn’t dead: 1 billion dollars raised in total if the private sale to institutions is included.

The numbers are impressive, but a close reading reveals cracks. According to CCN, Pump.fun’s revenue has dropped 92% since January. Daily token launches have fallen from 1,100 to 69. Despite this plummet, the diluted valuation exceeds $4 billion. Nonsense for some observers.

Jocy, founder of IOSG Ventures, sums up the irony:

In a market where purchasing power is weak, such a valuation is unsustainable. It contradicts fundamental logics.

“Every pre-sale is a scam”: trapped by its own archives

Before becoming a titan of flash raises, Pump.fun wanted to be an anti-pre-sale bastion. Its founder used to repeat that “every pre-sale is a scam” – “Every pre-sale is a scam.” Today, he orchestrates a public sale at $500 million. The irony did not escape anyone.

The platform, initially presented as a decentralized playground for degens, finds itself in the spotlight… and under heavy criticism. Jocy continues:

This is a masked exit maneuver. The team is looking to liquidate its position, disguised as community success.

Even major crypto exchanges like Kraken or KuCoin were approached to host the sale. The entry ticket? Up to $1 million per buyer, but without American or British investors, excluded for regulatory reasons.

This about-face triggered a wave of outrage on Twitter, Reddit, and in the crypto press. Some already call Pump.fun a business model built on sand. Others see a dangerous return of 2017-style ICOs.

Crypto or chaos? Pump.fun and the rug pulls machine

The reputation of Pump.fun is not just tarnished by its contradictions. It is actively eroded by its internal figures. According to Coinbase, a single individual is responsible for 18,000 tokens created via Pump.fun: “He wakes up, creates a dozen tokens per hour, sleeps, then repeats. He has been doing this for months.”

Worse still, 98.6% of tokens launched on the platform would be scams or rug pulls. A number that transforms the record ICO into a showcase of a toxic ecosystem.

Some figures to remember:

• $500M raised in 12 minutes during the PUMP ICO at $0.004;
• $700M in historical revenue generated by the Pump.fun platform;
• 11 million tokens created since launch, but 98.6% considered fraudulent;
• 18,000 tokens produced by a single person over several months.

Pump.fun, in its creative frenzy, appears less like an innovation factory and more like a crypto chaos accelerator. The promise of a disintermediated Web3 turns, for many, into a feeling of having been duped. The numerical success barely hides a drifting platform, at the mercy of bots and lawsuits.

Despite this spectacular raise, Pump.fun is no longer alone in the arena. Opposite, LetsBonk is attracting more and more memecoin creators on Solana. The platform war is on. And in this battle where boldness sometimes borders on fraud, one thing is certain: the meme crypto throne is more disputed than ever.