Is Solana Memecoin's "game" over?

Author: Ryan S. Gladwin

Compilation: Vernacular Blockchain

The number of tokens launched by popular launch platform and cultural center Pump.fun on Wednesday decreased by 64.6% from its peak in January. Meanwhile, according to Dune, Token's weekly graduation rate has also dropped to its lowest level since July 2024. The so-called "graduation" means that the token reaches a certain market value threshold. The previous threshold was $69,000, but it was raised to $100,000 at the end of last year.

This silence convinced some traders that Memecoin’s casino was closed and would never reopen again. Loopify (pseudonym), founder of crypto education platform Pluid, and a trader believe that the Memecoin cycle is over. He pointed out that some data show that the Memecoin boom has surpassed the peak of the previous NFT bull market.

According to Dune, the most popular NFT marketplace OpenSea has generated $943 million in revenue since its launch in 2017, compared with Pump.fun's revenue has exceeded $574 million since its launch in January 2024. Not to mention the revenue generated by trading robots, market makers and other protocols that are crucial to the Meme currency economy.

After seeing these statistics, others thought it was time to abandon Pump.fun as the center of the Memecoin ecosystem.

"The era of Pump.fun is over," Solana Bateman, a pseudonym trader and WIFToken deployer, said in an interview with Decrypt. "They never gave back anything, but squeezed too much," he added. "The difference between us and them is that we care about Solana, which is our home. And they care about filling their pockets."

This accusation often points to the launch platform, which opponents believe has not done enough to develop the market, but simply sells all the SOLs generated by the platform - although the founders denied this claim. Bateman said the platform could improve by improving token economics, creating better liquidity pools, or providing more sustainable models, such as adding token unlocks at specific market caps.

“I also agree that Pump.fun’s model is far from perfect, and I know the team has been working hard to find ways to improve,” Pump.fun co-founder Alon Cohen said in an interview with Decrypt.

“After the creation of Token, the design space for managing user incentives was very broad, so it took time to perfect it. However, since day one, Pump.fun has adhered to some principles that I think are still valid to this day.”

Cohen said these principles include keeping a low barrier to entry when creating a token while pursuing “simplicity and elegance” because complexity will push retail investors far away. He also added that he believes Pump.fun's standardized contracts are "a huge positive impact" on the ecosystem because they reduce the risk of developers creating malicious contracts and being abused.

How did we get to this point?

Memecoin’s collapse can be largely traced to the launch of Donald Trump’s official Memecoin, just days before his inauguration in January. The market is filled with fanaticism, with speculators announcing a new era of Memecoin and cryptocurrencies.

The next day, Melania Trump also launched his own token, causing the TRUMPToken to plummet - and MELANIA soon followed closely. Emotions change rapidly and traders begin to realize where the “scam” is. According to DEX Screener, TRUMPToken has fallen 85% from its all-time high, while MELANIA's decline has reached 94%.

These tokens have absorbed the liquidity of Memecoin traders and also created a large number of losses. Rennick Palley, founder of hedge fund Stratos, said in an interview with Decrypt. In the following months, more large MemecoinTokens surged and plummeted in 24 hours - causing significant losses to traders.

Most notably, LIBRA once soared to a market value of US$1.17 billion after Argentina President Javier Mile promoted through social media, but plummeted 96% in just six hours, falling to US$40 million. Afterwards, widespread insider trading allegations broke out, involving multiple major agreements and influencers, and investigators also found that the issuer of the Memecoin was linked to the team behind Melania Trump.

As the saying that Memecoin is a manipulation game continues to ferment, the market's fear of the complete corruption of the industry has reached an unprecedented high. Bateman believes that this is Memecoin's "last nail".

“At first, [Memecoin] looked like a casino game,” Nick Vaiman, co-founder and CEO of analytics company Bubblemaps, said in an interview with Decrypt. "But in reality, it's far worse than that: the game is manipulated from the beginning," he explained. "You have almost zero chances of winning because the real winners are destined: the insiders who know the inside story in advance, the savvy snipers who enter early, and the team behind it."

For some, this is enough to get them to give up Memecoin and start looking for more stable investments with real value behind it. VanEck portfolio manager Pranav Kanade said in an interview with Decrypt that he expects funds to flow out of Memecoin to “some niche Altcoin” because they provide more psychological comfort. But not everyone convinced this.

“A lot of people don’t like Altcoin, which has a big vision, with traditional venture capital support,” Loopify told Decrypt. “So they are more likely to stick to a single cultural token or simply exit the market until new opportunities emerge.”

Crypto trader Murad Mahmudov once talked about his Memecoin investment theory, the core of which is to find the "sect" and buy the tokens in it. However, according to CoinGecko data, any of the tokens on his list has not achieved a rise in the past seven days.

In addition, macroeconomic pressure is also driving the overall market downturn. Bitcoin (BTC) has fallen 17% since the launch of LIBRA, the S&P 500 has fallen 2.7% in the past month, and the Trump administration's tariffs have exacerbated market instability, according to TradingView.

“Global liquidity has declined recently, and Memecoin is particularly sensitive to this change,” Palley said, predicting that “it looks like liquidity has bottomed out and Memecoin may recover in the coming months.”

Some traders in the market also agree with this view. The pseudonym Memecoin trader 0xWinged believes that the market has overreacted and predicted that Solana will rebound to $170 soon, and market liquidity will also flow back to the Memecoin field.

"At the end of the day, human nature is to like gambling. As the subsequent market liquidity rebounds, I believe that funds involved in gambling will increase accordingly," Palley said, adding, "Memecoin will continue to exist."