The final kick was blocked, is Pump.fun's $1 billion ICO dream hanging in the balance?

Author: Fairy, ChainCatcher

Editor: TB, ChainCatcher

Update: The official Pump.fun and its founder's X account were unbanned on June 18

Just when it was about to take the final step, it faced a "chokehold."

At the critical juncture before the TGE, the official Pump.fun and the founder's X account were banned, and the shadow of multiple legal lawsuits resurfaced.

As it was about to enter the "monetization" phase, this sudden silence felt particularly delicate. Account bans, lawsuits, and confusion—how much glory time does Pump.fun have left?

Is the dream of issuing tokens abruptly halted?

Pump.fun is no longer at its peak. According to Defillama data, the platform reached a daily revenue peak of over $7 million on January 23, but has since continued to decline, recently maintaining around $1 million per day.

At the same time, the overall enthusiasm in the meme market has cooled, with meme launch platforms springing up like mushrooms after rain, leading to fierce market competition. During this period, although Pump.fun attempted to launch its own AMM and "live issuance" innovations, it failed to create significant impact. Under multiple pressures, issuing tokens has been seen by the community as Pump.fun's "last cut."

Image: Defillama

According to reports from The Block and Blockworks, Pump.fun plans to raise up to $1 billion through an ICO and is considering introducing a "revenue-sharing" mechanism. Its ICO valuation is set at $4 billion, with a total token supply cap expected to be 1 trillion tokens, marketed to private investors at a price of $0.004 per token. In terms of token distribution, it is expected that 25% will be sold to the public, with about 10% reserved for airdrops.

Additionally, crypto KOL AB Kuai.Dong disclosed a possible timeline for Pump.fun's launch: pre-sale and listing information to be announced on June 21, a three-day "new token" activity starting on June 25, and the official trading time to be announced on June 28.

Just four days before the announcement, the plot took a sudden turn. The official Pump.fun and its founder's X account were suddenly banned. This account ban incident had quietly spread since last week, with many "local dog" KOLs active in the meme coin ecosystem and X accounts on TG BOT trading platforms being banned consecutively, including BullX, Bloom, Nova, etc. The meme ecosystem fell into turmoil and confusion, and Pump.fun's token issuance plan may also be forced to hit the pause button.

Multiple risks: Class action lawsuits and the founder's past issues

Regarding the sudden wave of account bans, opinions in the community vary. Some believe this may be related to the project violating X platform's API usage regulations, allegedly scraping "black market" data; others speculate that the bans may be targeting "excessive liquidity extraction" behaviors, or even pointing to deeper potential fraud mechanisms. There are also voices suggesting that X is tightening its promotion and regulation of high-volatility, high-risk financial products like meme coins.

However, what deserves more attention is the series of legal lawsuits that Pump.fun is facing.

In December 2024, the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued a stern warning to Pump.fun, stating that it was providing financial services or products without permission. Subsequently, Pump.fun prohibited UK users from accessing the website.

Entering 2025, North America also saw a series of class action lawsuits against the platform and its executives:

• On January 16, the U.S. crypto law firm BurwickLaw filed a lawsuit against Pump.fun on behalf of multiple affected investors;
• On January 30, investor Diego Aguilar filed a class action lawsuit, accusing the project of violating U.S. securities laws while illegally collecting nearly $500 million in fees, describing its operations as a "Ponzi scheme and a new type of pump-and-dump."

Deeper than the turmoil are the controversies surrounding co-founder Dylan Kerler. Dylan Kerler has been questioned regarding his involvement in several "junk coin" rug pulls in earlier years. According to an investigation by WIRED, a developer using the name Dylan Kerler issued eight crypto projects in 2017, with eBitcoinCash and EthereumCash bringing in about $75,000 in ETH.

This developer promoted these coins on BitcoinTalk and subsequently sold them at their peak, leading to an 88% drop in EthereumCash. The promotional account "DOMAINBROKER" publicly shared an email containing Dylan Kerler's name, and the individual claimed to be from Brighton, UK, while Pump.fun co-founder Dylan Kerler happens to have a voter registration record in that area, with the same address used in company registration documents.

The community has long suffered from Pump.fun

In fact, the community has long been vocal about their grievances with Pump.fun. Every one to two weeks, Pump.fun transfers accumulated fee income to Kraken exchange. Over the past year, the platform has sold approximately 4.179 million SOL, totaling up to $751 million, with an average selling price of about $179.89.

Image: Ember

However, user profit data tells a different story. According to Dune, over the past six months, among approximately 4.257 million addresses that conducted more than ten token transactions on pump.fun, over 60% are in a state of loss. About 2.408 million addresses (56.6%) have losses ranging from $0 to $1,000, while around 1,700 addresses have losses exceeding $100,000, with 46 addresses losing over $1 million.

Among the addresses that are profitable, most of the gains are also very limited, with the highest number of addresses in the profit range of $0 to $1,000, totaling 916,500 (21.5%).

Additionally, since Pump.fun introduced creator revenue sharing on May 12, most people have not received much of the "cake."

Among the 3,566 creators counted by Solanafloor, 83.4% of creators earned less than $1,000, with 34.9% earning less than $100, and 48.5% earning between $100 and $1,000. Only 1.8% of creators were able to earn over $5,000.

It is undeniable that Pump.fun once shone brightly during the meme craze, becoming an important driver of market excitement. However, with the rapid cooling of enthusiasm and the sudden account ban turmoil, this once grand feast is quickly cooling down. Faced with unfavorable circumstances, how can Pump.fun break the deadlock to usher in a second spring?