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tl;dr
Javier Milei's endorsement of the LIBRA token has impacted Pump.fun, a platform for launching meme coins on Solana. Since the endorsement, Pump.fun's daily volume has dropped by 27%, signaling a cooling trend. The platform, known for launching meme coins, has become a core part of Solana's DeFi ecos...
Javier Milei's endorsement of the LIBRA token has impacted Pump.fun, a platform for launching meme coins on Solana. Since the endorsement, Pump.fun's daily volume has dropped by 27%, signaling a cooling trend. The platform, known for launching meme coins, has become a core part of Solana's DeFi ecosystem.
However, industry leaders, such as Nic Carter, believe that the meme coin trend has peaked, citing unfair advantages for insiders. The controversy surrounding Libra has led to allegations of misconduct, causing a decline in Pump.fun's new wallet registrations and meme coin launches. Despite this, Pump.fun continues to generate millions of dollars in fees daily.
As Javier Milei’s Libra fiasco drives industry-wide reflection on meme coins, the epicenter of Solana's so-called casino, Pump.fun, has shown signs of cooling off. Since the Argentine president endorsed the LIBRA token on Friday, Pump.fun’s daily volume has fallen 27% from $184 million to $134 million as of Tuesday, according to a Dune dashboard. The platform that lets anyone launch a meme coin easily on Solana has become emblematic of crypto’s latest craze.
Over the past year, some of the largest meme coins have been launched on Pump.fun, including Michi (MICHI), Billy (BILLY), and FWOG (FWOG). At this point, the platform has also become a core part of Solana’s decentralized finance, or DeFi, ecosystem.
As the dust settles around Milei's promotion of Libra, a Solana-based token, the sentiment surrounding meme coins is shifting among some industry leaders. On Wednesday, Nic Carter, a partner at Castle Island Ventures, said the meme coin trend had effectively hit a wall. Still, Pump.fun continues to rake in millions of dollars worth of fees in Solana each day, totaling $2 million on Tuesday and peaking at a record $15 million in late January.
Libra’s launch has been mired in controversy, prompting allegations of misconduct from the crypto community. On-chain evidence suggested that Libra’s own developers “sniped” the token for a quick profit, and liquidity was extracted in a way that ultimately hurt investors. Milei has distanced himself from Libra as Argentine lawyers pursue fraud complaints.
On Tuesday, he pushed back against the notion that his post on X was in promotion of the token, while again denying any knowledge of how LIBRA was concocted. Since LIBRA jumped to a $4.5 billion market cap and then quickly crashed, leaving some investors with hefty losses, Pump.fun has seen its growth stall in other ways beyond just volume.
On Tuesday, the platform registered just 59,000 new wallets, representing its lowest level of fresh engagement since November 17, 2024. The number of new meme coins launched on Pump.fun has also fallen drastically since the crypto-friendly president assumed control of the White House, from 61,800 then on January 20 to just 27,800 on Tuesday.
“Many are not extremely online and unaware of how extractive the sector is,” Carter said. “But the endless coterie of scandals in meme coin land will turn off the smarter investors and eventually the mass market.”