- A Pump.fun token promoted on trader Kimchi’s X account hit a ~$15 million market cap within minutes on Thursday.
- The post vanished about 30 minutes later, and the coin shed more than 98%.
- Pump.fun co-founder Alon Cohen reposted the promo, then pulled it.
On Thursday, trader Kimchi’s X account sent a brand-new Pump.fun token to a ~$15 million market cap in minutes.
About 30 minutes later the post disappeared and the coin tumbled by over 98%.
Market cap fell to ~$284,000 after $8.66 million in volume
The account shared a photo of a poster on a sidewalk in Manhattan that read “project kimchi, same internet, different outcome.” Poster had a Pump.fun logo, App Store badges and QR code pointing to a fresh token called Project Kimchi.
Market cap hit $10 million in seconds and peaked at about $15 million, though Lookonchain pegged the high at around $14 million.
Pump.fun co-founder Alon Cohen reposted the promo from his personal account, before erasing it. Traders who rescanned the QR code later said it no longer led to the token.
At one snapshot market cap was ~$284k, with $8.66M in trading volume. Another got it at ~$600,000 in minutes and ~$183,000 the next day.
Market cap prices the full supply at last trade.
Lookonchain flagged wallets that bought early and sold into the rally for a combined $385,000+ in profit. It listed three addresses on Solana.
Clayton Kim drops Pump.fun from his X bio as hack claim draws doubt
Early posts blamed an account hack. Skeptical on-chain sleuths doubted this within minutes, citing Cohen’s speedy repost and just as fast reversal.
Cohen did not post any hack warning after pulling the repost, trader Fabiano said on X. If they had a partnership deal, it made little sense for Kimchi to delete Pump.fun posts, he added.
Kimchi, real name Clayton Kim, has since scrubbed Pump.fun from his X bio and wiped older posts about joining the platform. By Friday, neither Kim nor Pump.fun had responded.
On October 20, two days prior to launch, Kimchi became a creative partner with Pump.fun. Cohen called him “the first ever example of a trader becoming a celebrity.”
X user tontheneko told Cohen to return buyers’ money. “You literally retweeted a rug pull and made hundreds of people lose money,” the user wrote.
There has been no official finding of fault or refund. Separately, Bitquery also detected three related wallets that made ~$104,000 on an earlier KIMCHI launch around October 20, but couldn’t connect them to the deployer.
Kimchi’s notoriety is based on a claim to ~$40 million in profit from the official TRUMP token, which launched in January 2025. Bubblemaps tracked his linked wallets on the day of the crash and found ~$6 million in verifiable profits.
Bubblemaps said a hidden address was possible, but unlikely, as Kimchi would have probably revealed it by now.
His first KIMCHI meme coin attained ~$40 million within an hour of the Pump.fun signing. An anonymous deployer purchased ~79% of supply for ~$9,300 and routed creator fees to a wallet labeled Kimchi.
Former Pump.fun developer Jarett Dunn got six years in prison from a London judge over a $2 million Solana fraud, Cryptopolitan reported in December 2025.
Only 6.25% of Solana meme traders made a profit over 90 days, with the median trader down $120, Cryptopolitan reported in August.
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FAQs
What is Project Kimchi and how did it crash?
A Pump.fun token promoted by QR code on Kimchi's X account. It shed more than 98% after the post vanished.
Did Kimchi really make $40 million on the TRUMP token?
Bubblemaps traced about $6 million in verifiable profit from his linked wallets.
Was the Kimchi account hacked?
Unconfirmed. Neither Kimchi nor Pump.fun had commented by Friday.
Disclaimer. The information provided is not trading advice. Cryptopolitan.com holds no liability for any investments made based on the information provided on this page. We strongly recommend independent research and/or consultation with a qualified professional before making any investment decisions.
Randa Moses
Randa Moses is an editor and reporter at Cryptopolitan covering tech, AI, robotics, crypto, scams, and hacks. She has worked in the crypto space since 2017. She held roles at Forward Protocol, AmaZix, and Cryptosomniac. Randa holds a degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the University of Bradford.
