Meme coin factory Pump.fun has released an update that will pay users who launch successful tokens on the platform.
According to a tweet by Pump.fun, the update, currently in beta, will also no longer charge users a fee in order to launch a token.
After launching in January, Pump.fun enabled anyone to create a token simply by filling out a form and paying 0.02 SOL ($3). Coins launched on the platform must hit a market cap around $69,000 in order to complete their ‘bonding curve,’ which is when the meme coin becomes tradable on decentralized exchange (DEX) Raydium.
To date, the protocol has birthed up to 18,000 tokens a day and brings in nearly $1 million in daily revenue, according to DeFi Llama.
Wiith this new change, Pump.fun has removed the 0.02 SOL required to launch a token and instead sees the deployer of a token that completes its bonding curve receive 0.5 SOL ($79).
“This unlocks the use case of someone creating a coin without buying any of its supply,” the official Pump.fun announcement post said. “It is paid regardless of whether the coin dev has ever held the coin or [is] still holding the coin. The reward also gives an incentive for all devs to get their coin to 100%.”
These changes have received a mixed response from the community.
Some investors love this idea as it gives developers an incentive to continue working on their meme coin. This comes amid a trend of devs dumping their tokens moments after launching for a quick profit with community takeover (CTO) teams forming to revive the project—sometimes the CTO being led by the dev themself.
Not everyone is as bullish on the idea. “FREE RUG PULLS LETS GOOOOOO,” pseudonymous trader Capo posted on Twitter.
“Well it was fun while it last lasted,” another pseudonymous trader, Anon, posted on Twitter. They added that, “I don’t see how this system doesn’t get exploited by people buying up their own tokens a 100 times over to make 50 SOL.”
Another concern is that this will only increase the saturation of meme coins in the space, something that has become a point of contention for some investors.
“Now the hyperinflation of coins will continue as devs do anything in their power launching hundreds of coins a day in hopes of $80,” founder of alpha trading group Yogurtverse, Yogurt.eth, replied on Twitter. “Interesting update.”
