40 Billion Valuation Coin Launch: Is Pump.fun Market Savior or Liquidity Killer?

Original Title: " The Rise of Pump.fun: $4 Billion Valuation Coin Offering, While the Depleted Market Awaits a Savior"

Original Source: TechFlow by Deep Tide

The Meme trend continues, but the market's enthusiasm seems to be running on fumes. While there are still daily meme launches, how long has it been since you saw a new phenomenon-level Shiba Inu compared to last year?

Memes may not be doing well, but this doesn't seem to affect the relentless advance of meme launch platforms. On June 4th, according to Blockworks, Pump.fun plans to conduct a coin offering to raise $10 billion at a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of $40 billion, selling approximately 25% of the tokens. This coin offering, targeting both public and private investors, is rumored to possibly include an airdrop, with the token potentially named "$PUMP," but specific details have yet to surface.

Although Pump.fun's official team has not yet confirmed the authenticity of this coin offering plan, for comparison, the issuer behind the stablecoin USDC, Circle, is seeking an IPO on the US stock market with a public valuation of only $7.2 billion.

Currently, the market's reaction to this news is starting to diverge. As soon as the news broke, the ALON token on Pump.fun (named after Pump's founder @a1lon_9) briefly surged by 102%, with pure speculation continuing.

Some are optimistic about Pump.fun's fundraising ability, anticipating token rewards or governance benefits; while others scoff at it, considering the $40 billion valuation outrageous, unable to hide the intent of a "rug pull." Fanaticism and fatigue coexist, opportunities and risks intertwine. If this meme launch platform, which is closest to trading, gambling, and volatility, truly issues its coin, will it be the savior of a depleted market or the final exit without looking back?

Perhaps the answer lies in its valuation logic and market pulse.

The Rise of Pump.fun: Is a $40 Billion Valuation Justified?

If we truly follow the coin offering plan disclosed by Blockworks, the FDV of PUMP is around $40 billion. Is this value justified? Perhaps we can use some data to explore the valuation logic. Public data shows that as of May this year, Pump.fun's total annual revenue is $296 million. If we estimate under the same conditions, the equivalent annualized revenue is around $710 million (296.1 million ÷ 5 × 12).

Based on this revenue situation, from a traditional valuation method perspective, the Price-to-Sales ratio (P/S, valuation of 4 billion divided by annual revenue) is 5.63, meaning the market pays $5.63 for every dollar of revenue, which is a common measure of growth in traditional markets. DeFi projects like Uniswap show similar values. If the PUMP token has revenue-sharing rights and assuming the token can take half of the revenue ($350 million), the Price-to-Earnings ratio (P/E, valuation divided by profit) is approximately 11.4, which is below the average level of U.S. tech stocks.

However, the issue is that meme-related businesses do not quite fit into this traditional valuation framework. The valuation of a Meme Launchpad is indeed related to revenue, but FOMO and market sentiment changes play a bigger role.

Circle has a stable and increasingly compliant USDC business, with an IPO valuation of $7.2 billion; however, Pump.fun's $4 billion valuation corresponds to the top meme launchpad in the industry, with a valuation exceeding half of Circle's, which does seem somewhat unreasonable. Moreover, Pump.fun's revenue is not very stable. At its worst, daily revenue was only around $110,000.

From breaking the billion-dollar monthly revenue mark in November 2024, to the highlight moment of $14 million daily revenue on January 2, 2025, to the low point of $11,070 daily revenue on March 9 this year... this platform's revenue fluctuates by almost a hundredfold, highlighting the cyclicality of the Meme market.

The revenue low point in March 2025 was actually a microcosm of the Meme market's value evaporation and waning enthusiasm—a sentiment-driven business, where revenue is fragile. However, even so, the platform never lacks supply. Pump.fun generates an average of 30,000 new tokens per day, controlling a significant portion of the Solana DEX trading volume. The continuous issuance of tokens and the stark contrast between market sentiment's highs and lows make it difficult to find a stable anchor for its valuation.

Depleted Market, Final FOMO?

Pump.fun is still advancing, whether through rumored token launches or previous attempts to create its own AMM and innovative live broadcast features, indicating that the platform itself has not remained stagnant. (See more: Meme Recession, Pump.fun's Self-Rescue: Can PumpSwap Sustain Future Business?)

However, the entire market, especially the Meme market, seems to have lost some of its momentum. Signs of market "exhaustion" are already evident. By December 2024, the overall Meme market cap had dropped from 137 billion to 96 billion, with 40 billion evaporating. In 2025, Solana DEX trading volume shrank by 20% compared to the previous year, with most new tokens quickly trending to zero, further shortening their lifecycle, and PVP [Player Versus Player] becoming hellishly difficult.

Occasional appearances by "golden dogs" [a term for successful or popular meme coins] fail to revive past glory. Retail investors have shifted from frenzied chasing of gains to a wait-and-see approach, and community discussions are filled with fatigue. The market is craving a new narrative—AI's next move, stablecoins, publicly traded companies holding crypto assets... rather than the overvalued gambles of old platforms.

At the same time, Pump.fun's past actions are causing concern. In 2024, the platform repeatedly sold the SOL it earned, exchanging it for USDC [USD Coin]; and January data shows that since January of this year, Pump.fun has sold around 182 million USD worth of SOL tokens. Earning SOL, draining liquidity; selling SOL, how much impact does it have on price and confidence?

The community currently generally holds a skeptical view of Pump's coin launches, with researcher Haotian stating, "It's hard to imagine that a MEME launch platform would be valued higher than most DeFi blue-chip protocols. This may be both a sign of the maturity of the MEME economy and a signal of the industry's moral decline."

After raising funds through coin launches, what will Pump.fun actually do with the money, and can it bring a substantial upgrade to Meme market gameplay? From the current comprehensive information, the answer seems to be negative; not to mention that various launchpads have emerged last month, each challenging the position of the once dominant launchpad in its own way.

Is the last dominant player really the last one, or the last one to cut losses? It's always wise to be cautious before the answer is revealed.

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