Original | Odaily ([@OdailyChina](https://x.com/OdailyChina))
Author | Azuma ([@azuma_eth](https://x.com/azuma_eth))
On May 13, on-chain data analyst Adam posted Dune panel data showing that in the past 24 hours, the number of graduated tokens from Raydium's token issuance platform LaunchLab (including third-party issuance platforms built on LaunchLab such as Letsbonk.Fun) was 198, surpassing Pump.fun's token graduation number of 171.
Adam commented that this is the first time in history that Pump.fun has encountered true competition.
Historical Grievances
The grievances between Pump.fun and Raydium have long existed.
In Pump.fun's early design, token issuance required two stages - "internal market" and "external market" - where tokens would first enter the "internal market" trading stage, relying on Pump.fun protocol's own Bonding Curve for matching. When trading volume reaches $69,000, it would enter the "external market" trading stage, with liquidity migrating to Raydium to create a pool and continue trading.
However, Pump.fun announced the launch of its own AMM DEX product PumpSwap on March 21. Since then, Pump.fun tokens would no longer migrate liquidity to Raydium when entering the "external market", but instead would be directed to PumpSwap - directly cutting off the traffic flow to Raydium and reducing its trading volume and fee income.
In response, Raydium announced the official launch of its token issuance platform LaunchLab on April 16, allowing users to quickly issue tokens and automatically migrate to Raydium AMM when token liquidity reaches a certain scale (85 SOL). Clearly, this was Raydium's direct counterattack against the aggressive Pump.fun.
Odaily Note: For details, please refer to 《Data Analysis: How Dependent is Raydium on Pump.fun?》and《Raydium Strikes Back at Pump.fun, Who Will Laugh Last in the Meme Comeback Season?》.
LaunchLab's "Killer Move"
Although LaunchLab's token issuance function is similar to Pump.fun, its biggest feature is not in the issuance stage - LaunchLab's architecture supports third-party integration, allowing external teams and platforms to create and manage their own launch environments within the LaunchLab ecosystem. In other words, third parties can rely on LaunchLab's underlying technology (with the key point being that liquidity pools remain in LaunchLab and Raydium) to launch independent token launch frontends.
The LaunchLab official interface shows that there are already over ten third-party token issuance platforms built on LaunchLab, including the recently popular Bonk community token issuance platform Letsbonk.Fun - in fact, most of the graduated tokens in the current LaunchLab ecosystem come from Letsbonk.Fun (refer to 《New Token Issuance Platform Letsbonk.fun Explodes Again, IKUN Becomes the Latest Headliner?》).
In short, LaunchLab's strategy is to use third-party platforms like Letsbonk.Fun to "wolf pack" attack Pump.fun, and based on the current trend, this strategy has shown initial effectiveness.
Additionally, Raydium launched an incentive program ahead of Pump.fun to provide incentives for issuance and trading activities on LaunchLab and related third-party platforms.
According to the latest official disclosure, as of today, Raydium has distributed approximately $2.8 million (about 950,000 RAY) in rewards to traders on LaunchLab and Letsbonk.Fun, with current daily incentive release around $110,000.
Pump.fun Forced to Respond
Perhaps sensing the momentum of the LaunchLab "wolf pack", Pump.fun was finally forced to give up part of its cake to attract more user retention - last night, Pump.fun announced the launch of a "creator income sharing" mechanism, where token creators can receive 50% of trading revenue sharing on the PumpSwap platform. From now on, any user who creates a token will continuously receive income as long as the token generates trading activity. The official stated that this mechanism aims to incentivize more quality project parties to participate in ecosystem construction.
Meanwhile, another small incident occurred last night - Pump.fun's X page briefly blocked Letsbonk.Fun founder Tom and some Raydium contributors, but it's unclear what exactly happened...
Will the Meme Issuance Track See a Reshuffle?
As shown in the chart below, for most of the time since mid-2024, Pump.fun (green part) has dominated the Meme issuance market in the Solana ecosystem, until recently when emerging platforms like LaunchLab (purple part) and Boop (blue part) began to gradually occupy a certain market share.
For any market, competition is not a bad thing for ordinary users, because more intense competition often forces incumbents to give up more profits and provide better user experiences - like the recent battle between JD.com and Meituan.
From an ordinary user's perspective, we might better look forward to LaunchLab continuing to make efforts and see more new players like LaunchLab emerge.
