Pump.fun is the third-largest ICO in history, but its PUMP token keeps crashing

Pump.fun managed to close as the third-biggest token sale in history. However, the token price started to slide soon after the launch, based on selling from whale buyers and even the developer wallet.

The Pump.fun ICO became the third largest in history, after raising $500M for a $6B valuation for the meme platform. Pump.fun lines up behind TON and EOS, who raised billions. Now, the meme platform is facing skepticism that its high-profile event would not lead to growth.

Based on Chainalysis data, Pump.fun still managed to hold an event outperforming some of the top projects from the 2017 ICO era.

📊Chart of the Week 📊 https://t.co/XWHZjKIU8E’s recent ICO became the third largest in history, raising approximately $600 million in under ⌚️15 minutes.

Notably, this matches the initial $600 million target set by Circle’s IPO, which ultimately expanded to over $1 billion.… pic.twitter.com/IW3cy3wbDA

— Chainalysis (@chainalysis) July 18, 2025

The token sale ended within 12 minutes, spreading to whale wallets despite the purchase limitations on some exchanges. The Pump.fun ICO was also comparable to this year’s crypto IPOs, as it closed in on Circle’s valuation of around $8B based on the initial IPO price.

The Pump.fun token sale also angered the community, as there was no airdrop or reward for long-term traders and meme creators. The Pump.fun team has hinted at an airdrop multiple times, but still showed whales were a priority in distributing PUMP.

PUMP crashes despite buyback attempt

Just two days after the token launch, PUMP erased 20% from its presale price. The token still relies on decentralized pairs with volatile liquidity, easily leading to a slump to the $0.004 range.

Previously, PUMP managed to climb above $0.006, though still facing pressure from whales and short sellers. The short-term rally coincided with a buyback attempt from the Pump.fun team.

The PUMP ICO was distributed between whales and retail wallets, with around 55% of participants participating with less than $1,000. A total of 202 wallets spent over $1M on the ICO.

In the first days after the sale, a total of 1,850 wallets held their original allocation. 2,937 wallets sent their PUMP allocation immediately to exchanges, while another 5,044 wallets moved the tokens, with no clear sign of intentions to sell.

Pump.fun token activity tanks with increased competition

PUMP underperformed despite the positive performance of the entire crypto market. The ICO happened during peak trading times, but the market had little appetite for new assets while BTC was making new records.

PUMP also faces pressure from the slowing activity and fee generation on Pump.fun. The platform only had 77 tokens graduate in the past 24 hours, with 288 new memes coming from LetsBonk. The new platform also produced its first token valued at over $10M after graduation.

The setback for Pump.fun may be temporary, as the meme launchpad has previously seen slower periods. However, having a new venue for the trenches may displace Pump.fun from the top.

LetsBonk daily fees also expanded to a record of $1.69M, while Pump.fun is down to $550K in 24 hours. Some of the losses on the meme launchpad coincided with upturn in revenue for PumpSwap DEX, which still achieves $1.66M in daily fees.