Pump.fun, a platform that enables anyone to create and launch memecoins, concluded one of the largest and fastest initial coin offerings (ICOs) on Saturday. Within 12 minutes of the ICO going live, the platform raised $600 million from the sale of 15% of its token supply for $0.0040 each.
The ICO, which ended far quicker than the assigned 72 hours, put the platform’s fully diluted valuation at $4 billion, according to the platform.
Over the next 48-72 hours, all 150 billion PUMP tokens will be transferred to the investors. The tokens, however, will remain untradeable and untransferrable until the platform completes the distribution phase by July 15, according to ICO Drops data.
The PUMP token was available for sale on various centralized exchanges, including Gate, Kraken, and KuCoin, each of which saw cumulative investments worth $5 million, $30 million, and $16.5 million, respectively.
Bybit announced that due to unexpected delays in its application programming interface (API), the PUMP sale was oversubscribed. The exchange said it is verifying the final allocation of users whose funds are frozen. For users who did not receive an allocation, Bybit said it will refund all funds.
Investors from the U.S. and the U.K. were barred from participating in the ICO for regulatory reasons. According to Bloomberg, today’s ICO pushed Pump.fun’s total token sales to $1.32 billion.
All about the PUMP token
The platform describes the PUMP token as a “utility coin that will be used alongside the pump.fun brand behind the Pump.Fun Protocols.”
Holders of the PUMP token can choose to participate in promotional giveaways. Pump.fun, however, clarifies that its protocols will remain permissionless and will not require the use of PUMP tokens.
The PUMP token’s maximum supply is capped at 1 trillion, of which 33% or 330 billion tokens are allocated to the ICO. Of the 33%, 18% or 180 billion tokens were sold to institutional investors in a private sale, the platform said in an X post. The remaining 15% was sold to retain investors during today’s ICO.
It is worth noting that data Pump.fun shows that only 12.5% of the token supply was sold for a total of $500 million. However, Pump.fun co-founder Alon Cohen told Bloomberg that all 15% of PUMP’s supply was sold in today’s ICO as per previously announced plans.
Community reaction
Despite the undeniable success of Pump.fun’s ICO, the crypto community is divided over its merits. This is especially in light of Pump.fun facing growing competition from LetsBONK and a decline in revenue. LetsBONK, a Solana-based memecoin launchpad, has clocked more volume than Pump.fun over the past week, according to Dune Analytics data.
Noting that he is not an investor, Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at venture capital firm Dragonfly, noted:
“$PUMP is going to be getting 25% of Pump revenues, so beyond one of the largest ICOs ever, this will be one of the highest gross revenue tokens in crypto.”
Others, however, are less thrilled about the ICO. For instance, Jeremie Henicz, head of XBorg AI, asked if he’s the only one who finds it “cringe,” while responding to Qureshi. Similarly, Marty Bent, founder of Truth for the Commoner (TFTC), stated:
“Pump.fun and those supporting it (even if at arm’s length) are Pied Pipers leading Gen Z to ruin.”
Even before the ICO, many have criticized the platform’s tokenomics. Crypto researcher Rex, for instance, called the platform’s tokenomics exploitative, with nearly 40% tokens allocated to Pump.fun itself.
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