Gate publishes then removes pump.fun token sale page
Still relatively little is known about the memecoin platform’s forthcoming token
Gate and pump.fun modified by Blockworks
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The crypto exchange Gate briefly published a webpage yesterday showing that pump.fun’s reported forthcoming token would go on sale early Saturday morning. Within a few hours, the page had been taken down.
It’s the latest twist in a token rollout that has seen information come from just about anyone but pump.fun itself. Gate and pump.fun did not comment on the token sale webpage or whether the Saturday morning presale date was correct. The snafu went down as a BONK-themed launchpad commands impressive revenue figures compared to pump’s.
In early June, we first reported that pump.fun had plans to raise $1 billion at a $4 billion valuation via a token sale. Bloomberg confirmed the news, as did The Block — which also scooped that the platform plans to distribute revenue to token holders.
But in the month since, pump.fun has remained tight-lipped about the whole situation — no founder podcast circuit, no points program, no other pageantry that typically revolves around a token rollout. In talking to sources, I get the sense the specifics of pump.fun’s TGE plan is not very well known, even to relative insiders.
Gategate underscores what has always seemingly been pump.fun’s PR strategy: Don’t say anything unless you absolutely need to. The exchange and its founders rarely, if ever, get involved in the multiple controversies that have sprung up around the project — with the only exception to wit being when it disabled its livestreaming feature.
So far, that strategy has worked out pretty well for consumer crypto’s revenue behemoth. Still, some believe a credible challenger to pump.fun’s dominance has finally emerged. Letsbonk.fun, a launchpad built with Raydium’s LaunchLab, has bested pump in revenue each of the past three days, taking 61% of Solana launchpad market share yesterday compared to pump.fun’s 19%, according to Blockworks Research data.
But I really wouldn’t bet on it. Pump.fun could just announce a token airdrop based on trading activity if it wanted to, and I bet the platform’s volume would spike right back up.
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