The "MEME Launchpad Battle" between pump.fun and Letsbonk.fun has been ongoing for a month since early July. During this period, we have witnessed pump.fun completing one of the largest ICOs in crypto history and Letsbonk.fun successfully attacking pump.fun's market share. Some "new players" have also joined the battle, which, while not causing significant waves in the short term, are worth understanding and paying attention to.
Let's start with this Jupiter data chart.
Although Letsbonk.fun still leads in market share over the past 7 days, its ecosystem's hot topics are currently moving in a completely different direction from pump.fun.
pump.fun: PVE Market Comeback?
On July 24th, after completing a live interview with threadguy, pump.fun and its founder @a1lon9 entered a nearly half-month-long silence. Half a month ago, this live interview was considered a "public relations disaster" as it significantly impacted the token price, with $PUMP dropping nearly 15% during the broadcast and falling close to 20% in a single day, briefly dropping below a $3 billion market cap.
From the end of this broadcast until now, pump.fun's market share gap with Letsbonk.fun hasn't significantly narrowed. However, pump.fun's reputation has seen a notable reversal since July 30th.
The reason is simple - the ecosystem's community tokens performed well during this unstable market period.
The MEME coins in the pump.fun ecosystem shown in the Official Twitter post from July 23rd are considered "officially selected" by many. Among these, $TROLL performed most impressively, rising up to 9 times since July 25th and breaking through a $100 million market cap. During the same period, $Tokabu rose about 5 times, briefly exceeding a $35 million market cap. $USDUC rose 2 times, approaching a $40 million market cap. $CHILLHOUSE and $neet also gained similar returns, briefly approaching $30 million and $18 million market caps respectively.
The newer faces have all been on an upward trend since July 25th, with only "streamer tokens" and older coins like $FWOG and $michi (existing for over 300 days) failing to keep up with this market movement.
Do these "new coins" have any positive news? It seems not, as pump.fun and alon remained silent until just a few days ago. From a narrative perspective, these "new coins" maintained high content output and community activity during pump.fun's lowest point, which aligns with pump.fun's expectations for MEME coins' long-term sustainability.
The official "counterattack" from pump.fun was finally revealed a few days ago - a $PUMP buyback data dashboard.
"In the past 6 days, we've bought back approximately 8,740 SOL worth of $PUMP, which is 102% of our income during this period."
In the early morning today, pump.fun's Official Twitter updated its cover image, once again promoting the "officially selected" MEME coins.
Interestingly, after the July 24th broadcast, the MEME coins purchased by pump.fun's founder were almost all at a loss. Now, all his holdings have turned profitable, and significantly so.
For the MEME coin market to recover, the first step is to "put the clothes back on" - rebuilding players' confidence in MEME coins, believing that they are more than just "conspiracies". Good narratives, good content, good communities, and continuous operations can ultimately help a MEME coin succeed. While we need to continue observing the performance of these coins on pump.fun, for now, it can be said that if this continues, it's a good start.
Moving forward, pump.fun still has many cards to play, such as airdrops and live streams. This is just the first step on a long journey. With major exchanges like Binance and OKX almost no longer listing new Solana MEME coins, pump.fun must explore more possibilities.
The revolution is not yet successful, comrades must continue to strive.
(The translation continues in the same manner for the rest of the text)
If this model is to work, there are still many challenges to overcome. First and foremost is "technology does not equal liquidity". There are too many devs on the chain, and if there's a hit meme, everyone will rush to launch it. So whether the issued coins can coalesce into consensus is something players will likely consider in terms of the platform's liquidity.
The second issue is sustainable development. If the 9GAG community can be brought to the coin, it would be more attractive. But everyone can see that the 4th step in the diagram is CTO... If your carefully selected 9GAG meme still needs a CTO, it might indicate that the community foundation is weak, and this potential advantage would be completely unrealized.
Moonit's new feature currently hasn't emerged as a leader.
As platforms proliferate, the problems to be solved don't seem to be decreasing.
Conclusion
The meme launchpad battle will continue in the foreseeable future. The huge success of pump.fun over the past year has made everyone want to "get a piece of the action". But everyone also faces a serious challenge - how to restore market interest and confidence in meme coins?
When CEXs seem less enthusiastic about listing new meme coins, can on-chain infrastructure and liquidity make meme coins great again?
Rather than calling it a "war", it's more like a test faced by all meme coin launchpads. After all, the precedent of inscriptions is right before our eyes - while inscription tools are becoming more sophisticated, the inscription boom has long since passed.
Hopefully, the ultimate beneficiaries will be the entire meme coin market and all crypto players who still love meme coins.
