Pump.fun launched Mayhem Mode to increase early trading volumes by tapping into AI agents to launch more coins and boost revenue, but after a week of operation, the feature has had little to show for the excitement it had garnered.
Mayhem Mode is an opt-in setting that allows an autonomous AI agent to buy and sell a newly launched coin during its first 24 hours. The agent receives an extra one billion tokens for trading, with any unused tokens burned after the period ends.
Before Mayhem Mode’s introduction, Pump.fun averaged around 17,300 token launches per day. Since the feature went live, daily launches have inched up to 17,800, a negligible increase given the expectations set by the launch.
Cryptopolitan had previously reported a decline in daily token creation, down to 12,000–15,000, while active addresses dropped to roughly 31,000 from over 200,000 a year ago.
Mayhem Mode weekly token launch numbers underwhelm
According to Pump.fun’s development team, the system is meant to facilitate early price discovery, helping new coins attract attention from investors faster and to boost trading revenues on the platform.
“Mayhem Mode aims to increase the number of good projects in the pump.fun ecosystem by making coin projects more appealing to engage in at early stages where they typically might fail,” the platform wrote in its documentation released last week.
Pump.fun had pitched it as a solution to lift token visibility to help developers launch and trade more coins, but the small uptick in launches could mean that early adoption of Mayhem has not significantly changed platform dynamics, though a longer observation period may offer different insights.
Compounding the underwhelming launch numbers, Pump.fun’s daily revenue has actually declined since Mayhem Mode debuted. Lower revenue has a knock-on effect, reducing PUMP token buybacks that mechanically support its price.
Without complementary curation or ranking mechanisms, Mayhem Mode’s added AI-driven activity could be more “market noise,” as it is visibly struggling to live out its purpose of meaningful token visibility.
The PUMP token currently trades at around $0.0031, down 74% from its all-time high of $0.012 reached in July. Pump.fun has invested over $175 million in buybacks since the peak, yet the token’s trading fees and token launch revenue have dropped between 40–50%, with “technical issues” preventing buybacks on one day.
Per data from Dune Analytics, token “graduation” rates, the share of launched coins that gain traction, are modest and tanking by the month. The Solana launchpad has seen 16,858 tokens launched in the last day, a 4.8% downtick from Monday’s recorded tally.
In October, out of 451,939 tokens launched, only 2,767 graduated, a 0.61% rate. September saw 679,341 tokens launched with a 0.58% graduation rate, and August recorded 604,162 launches with 0.75% graduation.
Pump.fun Mayhem mode, more harm than good?
While Pump.fun insists Mayhem Mode is fully opt-in and agents pay no protocol fees, some traders are worried it resembles wash trading. A single AI agent drawing massive numbers in early trading activity could make token markets appear busier than they are, or rather cause what they deem “artificial inflation.”
Naysayers have propounded that pairing the feature with curation could improve outcomes and help more coins “break out.” Yet, without these safeguards, Mayhem Mode may become another way for bad actors to redirect investors into rug-pulls while dragging liquidity levels down.
“The new mayhem mode (aka rapebot) on pumpfun has actually broken the problem pump set out to fix originally and is now creating situations on coins where it’s removing the LP, so not even the first wallet can sell into zero volume. Literally no one asked for this!” complained one user on X.
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