Pump.fun's Token Plummets 15.2% After $1.32 Billion ICO

Pump.fun's latest price was $0.004208, down 15.196% in the last 24 hours. The platform, which allows users to launch and buy memecoins, recently completed a significant initial coin offering (ICO), raising $500 million onchain at a $4 billion fully-diluted value (FDV). Additionally, another $100 million was raised via centralized exchanges (CEXs). The ICO was conducted on the Solana blockchain and saw over 10,000 addresses participating in the sale, which lasted only 12 minutes. During this time, 125 billion PUMP tokens were sold at $0.004 each, representing 12.5% of the entire supply.

Despite the initial success, the platform faced significant challenges. Whale wallets, which controlled over 60% of the presale allocations, exerted substantial influence over the market. Their sell-offs contributed to a major decline in the token's value, leading to mixed reactions from the crypto community amidst the market volatility. The platform's buyback of 3.04 billion PUMP tokens at $0.006 spurred a temporary rally, highlighting the potential for strategic recoveries despite earlier losses.

Pump.fun's ICO was notable for its accessibility, allowing small-time traders from various countries to participate after verifying their identity. This approach contrasted with the more restrictive regulatory climate of recent years, which had limited token sales to wealthy investors. The platform's success in raising funds through a public sale was seen as a throwback to the early days of cryptocurrency, when ICOs were more prevalent and less regulated.

However, the platform's success was not without controversy. Pump.fun has been criticized for allegedly facilitating pump-and-dump schemes and questionable promotional tactics. The platform's evolution from a small operation to one of the most used apps in crypto history has been marked by both success and controversy. The platform's ability to raise significant funds through a public sale highlights the potential for similar offerings in the future, but also raises questions about the regulatory and ethical implications of such activities.

In May 2024, Pump.fun experienced a significant security breach when a former senior developer, Jarett Dunn, exploited his access to private keys to drain funds from bonding curve contracts. The stolen SOL tokens, worth approximately $2 million, were intended for transfer to the Raydium decentralized exchange but were instead diverted to unrelated wallet addresses. Dunn's actions prompted Pump.fun to temporarily shut down its platform while it investigated the breach and cooperated with law enforcement.

Dunn's attack on Pump.fun occurred during his brief six-week employment with the company. He immediately began airdropping the stolen tokens to random wallet addresses, selecting holders of various Solana tokens and NFTs as unwitting recipients. His actions prompted Pump.fun to temporarily shut down its platform while it investigated the breach and cooperated with law enforcement. Within minutes of the exploit, Dunn claimed responsibility through his Twitter account, posting erratically about his actions and motivations.

During a Twitter Spaces session immediately following the attack, Dunn expressed his disdain for the platform he had targeted. He claimed the platform had "inadvertently hurt people for a long time" and described the company as "horribly managed." He also mentioned having "personal grievances" against its leadership. Dunn initially pleaded guilty to fraud charges in October 2024 but requested to withdraw his plea during what was scheduled to be his sentencing hearing. His legal team subsequently quit the case, leaving him to handle the complex legal proceedings while living in London under bail conditions that included movement restrictions and electronic monitoring.

The breach of his bail conditions occurred in early June 2025 when Dunn moved from London to Liverpool without authorization, violating the terms of his release. He was subsequently arrested and held at Walton Prison in Liverpool before being transferred to HMP Pentonville in London, where he remains on remand, awaiting a formal hearing to withdraw his guilty plea. His friend Mark Kelly, who has been communicating with Dunn through calls from behind bars, confirmed details of the bail breach to media outlets. Kelly described Dunn as "remarkably cool and zenlike considering his situation."

Dunn's case contributes to a growing trend of insider threats within the cryptocurrency industry, where employees with privileged access exploit their positions for personal gain or ideological reasons. Recent incidents include Coinbase rejecting a $20 million ransom demand in May 2025 after overseas support staff were bribed to leak user data, and Pond.fun suffering a hack in March 2025, allegedly perpetrated by its own lead software engineer who drained liquidity through blockchain privacy protocols. South Korea also recently sentenced an illegal XRP exchange operator to eight years in prison for defrauding investors of $3.4 million.

Despite the success of Pump.fun, it has also been continually criticized for allegedly facilitating pump-and-dump schemes and questionable promotional tactics. The platform's ability to raise significant funds through a public sale highlights the potential for similar offerings in the future, but also raises questions about the regulatory and ethical implications of such activities. The evolving scenario around PUMP token underpins potential for further financial disruption. Historical data indicates swift sell-offs result in considerable downward pressure. Observers remain watchful for longer-term market stabilization.

Pump.fun, a prominent memecoin launch platform operating on the Solana blockchain, recently concluded an unprecedented token fundraising event. This sale generated extraordinary attention within the cryptocurrency sector, securing a staggering total of $1.32 billion. The fundraising comprised two distinct components: $600 million was raised publicly through the sale of its PUMP token, achieved remarkably within a mere 12 minutes. This public sale was accessible to participants globally after identity verification, though notably excluded users from jurisdictions like the United States, the United Kingdom, and Iran. Concurrently, a private sale segment contributed an additional $720 million, cementing the platform's position for one of the most substantial crypto fundraising achievements observed in 2025.

The nature of Pump.fun's token offering represented a significant shift from the prevailing crypto fundraising trends of recent years. Its public accessibility marked a return to aspects of the earlier, more open era of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) prevalent nearly a decade ago, a period characterized by widespread public token launches. This model starkly contrasts with the subsequent, more restrictive regulatory climate that largely confined token sales to private placements for accredited and institutional investors. The scale of this raise has sparked discussions about whether this signals a broader resurgence of the public ICO model within the current market environment, drawing parallels to landmark events like Ethereum's foundational crowdsale in 2014.

However, the monumental raise has been accompanied by growing debate regarding the long-term sustainability of the underlying model employed by Solana-based meme coin launchpads like Pump.fun. A specific research report dated July 16th highlighted these concerns, focusing on the market dynamics following the token's distribution. Observers noted significant token distribution activity after the sale, suggesting substantial profit-taking by early participants. The focus remains intensely on the platform's ability to translate this enormous capital influx and the novel fundraising approach into enduring stability and value within the fast-evolving cryptocurrency ecosystem. Platform metrics reported prior to the fundraiser indicate Pump.fun accrued over $770 million in revenue during its initial 17 months of operation.