PUMP keeps unraveling as top ICO buyers rushed to sell

Pump.fun’s new token, PUMP, now trades 25% below its ICO value. Two of the biggest buyers rushed to sell their shares on exchanges, deepening today’s crash. 

Pump.fun’s token PUMP slid by over 13.8% in the past day, to trade at $0.003. Currently, the token is down around 25% from its ICO price, still unraveling after the initial rally. 

PUMP selling accelerated even after the launch of centralized listing, with prices sliding on Gate, MEXC, Bitget, and other exchanges. Initially, the token also saw selling from the team wallet. A brief attempt to buy back tokens did not change the sentiment for PUMP. 

The token slid despite the recent OKX trading campaign. PUMP did not behave like previous airdrops, or follow the trajectory of Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) or Hyperliquid (HYPE), which stressed community and holding. 

Large ICO buyers shed PUMP

On-chain data shows two of the initial whale buyers were quick to shed their holdings. A wallet identified as PUMP Top Fund 1 initially spent $100M to acquire the token, signalling a private deal or a larger partnership. 

The fund bought 25B PUMP at $0.004, then deposited 17B tokens, valued at $89.5B days later. The wallet retains 7.99B PUMP, its main holding, excepting minor meme tokens. The whale liquidated the stake through the FalconX exchange. 

Another large-scale buyer, PUMP Top Fund 2, spent 50M USDC on the presale, then sent all 12.5B tokens to exchanges, locking in $71.75M. The wallet retains only 10 PUMP and minimal meme token balances. 

The two buyers followed the example of earlier whales, who dumped another 25.5B PUMP even sooner after the launch. The whales sold into the initial rally, locking in $40M in profits. 

Over 76% of PUMP was placed through the site presale, with the remaining tokens spread to retail through exchanges. More than 80% of buyers moved their tokens immediately, with 31.5% of buyers liquidating their PUMP through DEX. 

As a result, PUMP is the worst-performing token for the past 90 days, erasing 40% of its value from the peak. The PUMP presale happened during one of the record market rallies, but the hype did not spread to the new token. The ICO was also seen as a type of extraction. 

The PUMP whales shifted to SOL, which then rallied to over $200, extending the initial gains. As a side effect, the Pump.fun presale managed to raise demand for SOL liquidity. 

Pump.fun still lags behind other meme platforms

Pump.fun still launches around 8,000 to 10,000 tokens, coming from 5,580 creator addresses. 

In the past two weeks, LetsBonk continues to generate over 22K tokens daily, with more graduations to DEX pairs. The new platform achieved $1.84M in daily fees, improving its own record. 

Pump.fun and its native PumpSwap DEX generate around $1.21M in fees. On average, the exchange achieved 284 graduating tokens daily, though on some days, under 100 tokens move on to DEX. Even after graduation, most tokens lose their activity within a month. Only 7% of Pump.fun graduating tokens are still active on DEX a month after their graduation.