Crypto Buzz: Is It Game Over for Solana Memecoin?

Author: Ryan S. Gladwin; Translated by: Vernacular Blockchain

Pump.fun, a popular launch platform and cultural hub, launched 64.6% fewer tokens on Wednesday than at its peak in January. Meanwhile, the weekly graduation rate for tokens has also fallen to its lowest level since July 2024, according to Dune data. The so-called "graduation" refers to a token reaching a certain market value threshold, which was previously $69,000 but was raised to $100,000 at the end of last year.
The silence has led some traders to believe that the Memecoin casino has closed and will never reopen. Loopify (pseudonym), the founder of crypto education platform Pluid, and a trader believe that the Memecoin cycle is over. He pointed to some data showing that the Memecoin craze 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, while Pump.fun, by comparison, has generated more than $574 million since its launch in January 2024. That’s not to mention the revenue generated by trading bots, market makers, and other protocols that are critical to the Memecoin economy.

Others see these statistics and think it’s time to abandon Pump.fun as the center of the Memecoin ecosystem.
“The days of Pump.fun are over,” said Solana Bateman, a pseudonymous trader and WIFToken deployer, in an interview with Decrypt. “They’ve never given anything back, and they’ve taken so much.” He added: “The difference between us and them is this: We care about Solana, it’s our home. They only care about filling their pockets.”
This accusation is often leveled at the launch platform, with naysayers arguing that it’s not doing enough to grow the market and is simply selling off all the SOL the platform generates — though the founders deny this claim. Bateman said the platform could improve by improving token economics, creating better liquidity pools, or offering a more sustainable model, such as increasing token unlocking at certain market caps.
“I agree that Pump.fun’s model is far from perfect, and I know the team is always working hard to find ways to improve it,” Pump.fun co-founder Alon Cohen told Decrypt in an interview.
“The design space for managing user incentives after token creation is very broad, so perfecting this will take time. However, from day one, Pump.fun adhered to a few principles that I think still hold true today.”
Cohen said those principles include keeping barriers to entry low when creating tokens, while pursuing “simplicity and elegance” because complexity can drive retail investors away. He added that he believes Pump.fun’s standardized contracts are a “huge positive” for the ecosystem because they reduce the risk of developers creating malicious contracts that can be abused.
How did we get here?
Memecoin’s collapse can largely be traced back to the launch of Donald Trump’s official Memecoin, just days before his inauguration in January. The market was filled with enthusiasm, and speculators heralded a new era for Memecoin and cryptocurrencies.
The next day, Melania Trump also launched her own token, causing TRUMPToken to plummet—and MELANIA soon followed. Sentiment shifted quickly, and traders began to realize the “scam” was there. According to data from DEX Screener, TRUMPToken is now down 85% from its all-time high, while MELANIA is down 94%.
These token launches sucked liquidity from Memecoin traders while also creating a large number of losers. Rennick Palley, founder of hedge fund Stratos, said in an interview with Decrypt. In the months that followed, more large Memecoin tokens saw sharp rises and falls in the space of 24 hours — causing significant losses for traders.
Most notably, LIBRA, which soared to a market cap of $1.17 billion after being promoted by Argentine President Javier Milley via social media, plummeted 96% to $40 million in just six hours. In the aftermath, widespread insider trading allegations broke out, implicating multiple major protocols and influencers, while investigators also found ties between the issuer of the Memecoin and the team behind Melania Trump’s Memecoin.
As claims that Memecoin was a rigged game continued to grow, fears that the industry was completely corrupt reached an all-time high. Bateman believes this was the “final nail in the coffin” for Memecoin.
“At first, [Memecoin] looked like a casino game,” Nick Vaiman, co-founder and CEO of analytics firm Bubblemaps, told Decrypt. "But in reality, it's much worse than that: the game is rigged from the start," he explained. "Your odds of winning are almost zero because the real winners are already determined: the insiders who know the inside story in advance, the smart snipers who get in early, and the teams behind it."
For some, this is enough to make them abandon Memecoin and start looking for more stable investments with real value behind them. VanEck portfolio manager Pranav Kanade told Decrypt that he expects funds to flow out of Memecoin and into "some of the niche altcoins" because they can provide more psychological comfort. But not everyone is convinced.
"A lot of people don't like traditional VC-backed altcoins with big visions," Loopify told Decrypt, "so they are more likely to stick with a single cultural token or simply exit the market until new opportunities arise."
Crypto trader Murad Mahmudov has talked about his Memecoin investment thesis, which revolves around finding "sects" and buying the tokens in them. However, according to data from CoinGecko, none of the tokens on his list have achieved gains in the past seven days.
In addition, macroeconomic pressures are also driving the overall market downward. According to TradingView data, 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 tariff policy has exacerbated market instability.
"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 next few months."
Some traders in the market also agree with this view. The pseudonymous Memecoin trader 0xWinged believes that the market has overreacted and predicts that Solana will soon rebound to $170, and market liquidity will flow back to the Memecoin field.
"In the final analysis, human nature is to like gambling. As the subsequent market liquidity recovers, I believe that the funds involved in gambling will also increase." Palley said, adding, "Memecoin will continue to exist."