Original Author: Nico
Original Translation: TechFlow
I have been in the "Trenches" for quite a long time, and on Crypto Twitter (CT), many claim they are "dead".
Compared to a few months ago, the trading volume of Meme coins has diminished, and the $TRUMP coin undoubtedly marks a local high point in terms of mindshare, trading volume, and liquidity attraction for Meme coins.
However, at that time, SOL's price reached $290, BTC exceeded $100,000, and the Bull market was in full swing. Since then, BTC has fallen to the $74-88k range, and SOL hit a local low of $95. However, SOL has now risen to over $140 (rising 46% in just 15 days), and BTC has also rebounded above $90k, so we need to reassess the current situation.
Despite SOL's lower price and the generally bearish market sentiment and boredom, the data paints a different picture. Let's look at the data for April so far:
@pumpdotfun has generated about $650 million so far, with daily trading volumes in April ranging from $1 million to $2.7 million, averaging in the higher range of around $1.5 million to $2 million.
As SOL's price rises and TRUMP coin-related trading volume declines, trading volume in April has begun to significantly rebound. With the launch of PumpSwap and almost instant migration, the dynamics around the migration event smoothed out the trading experience. This can be seen from the increase in weekly total trading volume.
So far, 9.7 million tokens have been created, with 20,000 to 40,000 tokens going online daily in April, and 100 to 350 tokens "graduating" each day (graduation rate of 0.4% to 0.8%).
The declining trend of graduation rate over time is related to the decrease in users and trading volume, indicating a higher proportion of player-to-player (PVP) trading in the trenches, as small groups bundle and sell supply to each other when tokens are first launched, and choose to exit early when unable to attract additional liquidity to bind tokens.
Active Users
During the peak from December 2024 to February 2025, PumpFunMeme coins had 200,000 to 400,000 users trading daily. Since then, the number of users has been declining and has remained below 200,000 for the past two months.
Currently, there are about 150,000 active wallets daily, distributed relatively evenly between existing/reused and new wallets. It's worth noting that most traders trade across multiple wallets and occasionally change their active wallets.
Trading Bot Statistics
It is well known that most Meme coin trading activity occurs on the top five terminals, such as @AxiomExchange,
@bullx_io, @tradewithPhoton, @gmgnai, and @TrojanOnSolana.
These data are roughly consistent with our observations, totaling over 100,000 users and more than $100 million in daily trading volume.
Platform Asset Management Scale and Fee Situation
On these platforms and others, the circulating SOL value in the Meme coin market may exceed $200 million. In the next article, I will assess the total value of all liquidity pools and tokens.
PumpSwap
PumpSwap's daily trading volume is $300 million to $480 million, accounting for 9-19% of Solana's decentralized exchange (DEX) trading volume. Since all new PumpFun tokens are published and traded on PumpSwap, this means that tokens published before PumpSwap still have a large amount of trading through Raydium/Meteora.
PumpSwap is a very clever move by the PumpFun team, charging a 0.25% fee, of which 0.020% goes to liquidity providers (LPs), and 0.05% belongs to the protocol.
In the first month since its launch, PumpSwap has generated about $25 million in total fees (between $100,000 and $240,000 per day), with LPs earning about $20 million, and the remaining $5 million belonging to the protocol.
As PumpSwap's market share steadily grows, I expect this number to increase, as we see more people choosing to trade new tokens over old ones.
Prioritizing new coins aligns with my argument about how the Meme coin field will continue to develop. Undoubtedly, the "trenches" of Meme coins have recently become more difficult, as the remaining active participants are seasoned veterans who have persevered during the challenging period of low SOL prices, reduced trading volume, and fewer users.
The Meme coin field relies on attracting new liquidity in the form of new users, which initially comes from concessions by more serious crypto investors/industry participants seeking faster returns than their losing Altcoins.
As the entire field grows, retail participants also begin to venture into these deep trenches.
Memecoins remain the tool of choice for speculation, with Solana as the "casino" banker. Because these coins are easy to understand, have a low entry barrier, and have highly asymmetric upside potential, they are more attractive to new traders. Something new happens every day, and everything can be tokenized: people, content, events, memes, etc., so related content is almost endless.
People have grown tired of DeFi coins that require fine management and often need a deep understanding of protocol design and dynamics. Beyond Meme coins, the few projects I'm willing to bet on are Hyperliquid and its ecosystem, and Fartcoin, which has gained attention due to "hot air rising".
Did you think the trenches had disappeared? The work is not done; it has just begun.
