Analysis
LaunchPad Wars: Is PumpFun Losing Its Crown?
PumpFun was the undisputed king of memecoins.
It's a memecoin launchpad that allows users to create and trade memecoins. The narrative was successful this cycle due to them. Until now, they've made ~$700M in revenue.
But as they're going to conduct a token sale soon, someone else has taken over the throne of memecoins.
What happened? LetsBONK has been catching up to PumpFun. And recently, it flipped PumpFun in many key metrics.
- LetsBONK collected >2x the fees of PumpFun launchpad.
- 75% of yesterday's graduated memecoins came from LetsBONK.
- While LetsBONK got 61.7% of yesterday's token deployments, PumpFun only got 27.4%.
- Among the top 25 new tokens of the last seven days, only four memecoins were from PumpFun.
What's LetsBONK? It's a launchpad associated with $BONK memecoin. Since ~50% of the token was airdropped to the Solana community back in December 2022 when SOL wasn't that hot, it has broad support from the Solana community.
The platform was developed using Solana DEX Raydium's LaunchLab, which was created as a competitor to PumpFun after PF created its own DEX called PumpSwap. Aside from being a memecoin launchpad by itself, Launchlab also lets teams launch their own customized token launchpads.
In the last seven days, $BONK is up 64%. While it's a memecoin, revenue from LetsBONK is used to pump $BONK. And it had generated $1.24M fees in the last 24 hours alone.
Is this temporary?
This isn't the first time a memecoin launchpad has tried to challenge PumpFun. BoopFun, BelieveApp, and Moonshot are just some of the examples.
The chart below tracks the daily token deployments. Green is PumpFun. You can see competitors over time in other colors.
So, PumpFun has always come on top of other competitors. But LetsBONK is different from those in some meaningful ways.
- None of the other competitors had flipped PumpFun on metrics like 24-hour token deployment.
- $BONK has a solid Solana community that they built during the bear market. They'll be incentivized to use LetsBONK rather than PumpFun.
- Most of the competitors only attracted significant activity due to the hype associated with their launch. In contrast, LetsBONK has been here for a few months.
- The capital in the meme economy has remained same / reduced slightly over the past few days. So this seems actual user migration rather than
- Raydium team seems to have worked hard in the last two months to attract top meme creators to LetsBONK. PumpFun was taking away business from Raydium by launching PumpSwap. This seems to be a retaliation.
Now, PumpFun hasn't lost by any means. The recent LetsBonk hackathon might mean this is a short-term thing. They still have more daily active addresses (114k) than LetsBONK (84k). But since all the "winning" memecoins are on LetsBONK, more people might migrate to LetsBONK.
The timing is very bad for PumpFun. They have a token sale valued at $4B coming up, and these stats will push people away from it.
This might be the PumpFun challenger that'll take the memecoin throne. We'll have to wait and watch.
Sponsored by Gearbox
$GEAR: Everything You Need to Know
Gearbox is the leverage layer of DeFi.
The above chart tracks its Total Value Locked and the Market Cap. What stands out?
TVL has been steadily climbing. That's a clear sign of protocol growth. But the market cap? Still lagging. And usually, that's an opportunity.
The last time Gearbox had today's market cap, the $GEAR was 2x the current price. When fundamentals go up but prices don't follow—well, that's usually a great accumulation zone. The market just hasn't priced in Gearbox's growth yet.
Now, I know what you're thinking. "Don't be naive. Tokens are just exit liquidity for insiders."
- Many tokens are useless "governance" tokens where insiders extract all the value.
- We never really know when VCs or KOLs bought in, what sweetheart deals they struck with market makers, or when they're dumping.
- And don't get me started on others like the hidden wallets, undeclared TGE distribution, vesting with staking rewards, and so on.
But here's the thing: $GEAR isn't like that.
Token Transparency Framework is a new auditing initiative to remove shady token shenanigans. And Gearbox is one of the earliest projects to undergo the full audit.
The result? 39.5 out of 40. That's not just a pass, it's near-perfect score.
You can read the full report here.
Debate
The $200 Million Fashion Question
Is Zelenksyy wearing a suit in the above image?
At first glance, it sounds silly. "Why argue over whether someone wore a suit?" Well… there are millions riding on the answer.
The $200 Million Prediction Market
On June 24, 2025, at a NATO summit, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy showed up in a sleek black outfit: black jacket, matching black pants, and a black shirt. You can see the look for yourself here.
Now, this outfit looked like a suit to many. Media outlets like BBC, Reuters, Politico, and the New York Times all described it as a suit.
And that mattered because on Polymarket, a popular crypto-based prediction platform, there was a live market asking: "Will Zelenskyy wear a suit before July?"
Many in the market thought it was a clear "Yes." The reporting consensus was there. That's all the market needed for a resolution.
Btw, returns on these markets are massive. If you bet yes right now at 2% probability, the return is >4900%.
What caused the drama? The "Yes" resolution was disputed, and a "No" resolution was proposed. They argued that unusual details such as the four patch pockets (a suit jacket typically only has three pockets) and the shape of the collar and lapels meant it wasn't a suit.
In other words, Zelenskyy's dress didn't meet many people's social expectations for a "suit".
But those details don't necessarily mean that Zelensky's dress wasn't a suit. Tailors often play around with these details.
Main technical qualification for a suit is that the jacket and pants are cut from the same cloth. And Zelensky's dress checks that box. So experts agree that it's a suit.
But the "Yes" shares have tanked from $0.19 on June 26 to just $0.02 today. That's a brutal loss for a lot of bettors. And with over $200 million in trading volume, this isn't some niche market. Many people are losing serious money in this.
The core issue of the "Zelensky suit" market is imprecise wording. UMA voters were able to justify their decision since the dress didn't meet the expectation of "suit" for many people.
Accusations of Manipulation
People are accusing Polymarket of being rigged.
Lemme backup a bit and explain its resolution mechanism. If an outcome is disputed, it goes to a vote. But the vote is done by UMA tokenholders. And here's the problem: those same tokenholders are allowed to bet on the outcomes they're voting to resolve.
Conflict of interest much?
This isn't the first time it's happened, either:
This kind of dispute resolution leaves the door wide open for manipulation. And right now, Polymarket is feeling the heat.
Polymarket's future?
Polymarket hasn't officially addressed the issue yet. But repeatedly making controversial (wrong?) decisions will kill their credibility.
Theoretically, users could leave for other prediction markets like Truemarket, which has a different resolution mechanism. But there's enough liquidity and network effects in Polymarket that they can move past this if they fix it.
Polymarket and UMA also seem to be working on a next-generation prediction market oracle.
Prediction market is a rare, useful crypto sector that's also successful. We need to get it right.
🚀 DeFi Catalysts
Velodrome Finance has released SuperSwaps. Users can now swap across all chains on the OP Superchain from a single interface.
HyperLiquid activated CoreWriter. It allows the smart contracts on HyperEVM to execute transactions directly on HyperCore's CLOB.
Virtuals Protocol has released the public beta of the Agent Commerce Protocol. The ACP Builder's Guide is live as well.
Aerodrome introduced the Pool Launcher. It'll make it quick and easy to deploy liquidity
Ondo is acquiring Oasis Pro. It comes with an SEC-registered broker-dealer, Alternative Trading System, and Transfer Agent.
📰 Industry News
Coinbase has brought the token management platform Liquifi, which has compared itself to the private equity-management platform Carta.
US Senate will debate whether tokens such as XRP should be classified as digital commodities tomorrow.
Trump's 90-day pause on massive tariffs is set to end tomorrow. Admin is most likely to extend the pause to August.
🐦⬛ X Hits
- Your guide to bet sizing.
- Korean stablecoin bubble.
- GCR is accused of insider trading.
- Market map of Treasury Strategy companies
- On the potential of stablecoins
😂 Meme
Until next time,
Edgy
Today's email was written by Edgy and Yayya.
DISCLAIMER: I'm NOT a financial advisor. This content is for education and information purposes only. Crypto and DeFi are risky and speculative. Please do your research before investing.
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