Original author: @insomniac_ac

Original translation: AiddiaoJP, Foresight news

background

Pumpfun and Solana competitor LetsBonk.fun are locked in a memecoin arms race, with both sides constantly rolling out new features to attract traders.

LetsBonk.fun was launched in April 2025 and quickly surpassed Pumpfun in daily activity in mid-July, reaching a peak of 28,000 tokens issued per day, while Pumpfun's low was only 3,500.

At the time, LetsBonk also led in terms of trading volume ($179 million vs. $52 million per day) and fee revenue ($14.51 million vs. $23.29 million in the past 30 days).

However, Pumpfun recently reversed course, surpassing its competitors by creating over 15,000 tokens in 24 hours.

Pumpfun Income

LetsBonk Revenue

Built around Solana's BONK token, LetsBonk was marketed as a "community-first" initiative. It launched a governance token and offered creators a 1% share of transaction fees, significantly higher than the 0.05% offered by Pumpfun. The team explicitly reinvested fees back into the ecosystem. For example, 50% of LetsBonk's fees were used to buy back and burn BONK, while 8% was deposited into a reserve fund. This initiative was well-received by users.

By July, community sentiment had turned against Pumpfun's cash-generating strategy, with many early adopters selling their PUMP tokens after their initial coin offering (ICO) on July 12th, despite the ICO raising a staggering $500 million. Immediately following the launch, the token's price plummeted by over 50% from its all-time high, forcing Pumpfun to initiate a multi-hundred-million-dollar buyback program to stabilize the price.

Faced with pressure, Pump.fun adjusted its strategy to try to win back market share. In May, it began sharing 0.05% of its exchange fees with token creators, a move designed to curb immediate rug-pulls and reward ongoing community building.

The latest update on August 8th is a bold step in this direction.

Pumpfun announced the launch of "Group Coins," a feature set that supports team-based token issuance and provides collaborative tools for meme coin creators. This update introduces "Create a Squad" (where multiple developers can jointly issue tokens), a multisig wallet for project funding, and competitive issuance categories (such as leaderboards or competitions for new tokens).

The goal is to bring structure and trust to the chaotic meme market while fundamentally addressing PumpFun's long-standing "one-wave" issues, such as rug pull scams, inactive tokens, and diluted trading volume. By allowing teams to issue tokens and requiring multi-sig control, PumpFun aims to curb single-person scams and encourage long-term, community-driven projects. This is also PumpFun's attempt to differentiate itself from the BONKBot ecosystem by fostering a social and collaborative atmosphere.

Notably, the "Group Coins" update comes on the heels of other major Pumpfun initiatives: fee sharing updates and the launch of the PUMP token. This is part of a broader strategy to re-engage creators and traders who flocked to LetsBonk. If early criticism was that Pumpfun's developers simply pocketed fees and ignored the community, these recent changes directly address that narrative. For example, Pumpfun now shares revenue with creators and has hinted at potentially sharing revenue with PUMP token holders in the future.

By providing multi-sig security for its "founding squad," the platform demonstrates its commitment to legitimacy; no one wants to be the victim of a rug pull scam, and multi-sig teams can help filter out bad actors. In short, Pumpfun is catching up to its competitors by injecting community incentives and safeguards into its model, something LetsBonk has prioritized from the outset.

The Solana meme coin community immediately took notice of Pumpfun’s “Group Coins” announcement, with many believing it to be a clever shift. Pumpfun co-founder @a 1 lon 9 had teased a “big announcement coming soon regarding organic community tokens” a few days prior, and the actual update did bring a glimmer of optimism.

Some traders on Twitter praised the idea of team issuance as a way to “bring more legitimate teams into the meme coin.” Others hoped that multi-sig control could restore some trust and serve as an antidote to the Wild West-style rug-pulling culture.

Pumpfun's token price even rose 15% in the days following the announcement, thanks in part to a bet from at least one "whale": On August 5th, on-chain sleuths discovered that a whale purchased 1.06 billion PUMP tokens, worth $3.3 million, establishing a 3x long position before the update. This large bet suggests that insiders expect Pump.fun to regain users and trading volume through these changes.

Meanwhile, skeptics abound. Some in the community joked that "Group Coins" were just "Group Rugs," suggesting that dishonest developers might be collaborating to commit fraud. On X, influential trader Byzantine General harshly criticized Pumpfun's decline as a "failure" and a "generational misstep," skeptical that new features could fully reverse the losses. "They had all the market share, and they completely screwed up... It's ridiculous that they somehow lost the market," he bluntly observed.

From this perspective, Pumpfun’s reputation won’t be repaired overnight. Critics also point out that LetsBonk still offers creators more generous incentives (1% fee share vs. Pumpfun’s 0.05%), so Pumpfun may need to do more to win back top meme creators.

Outlook and Forecast

So, what does all this mean for the future of Pumpfun vs. BONKBot? In the short term, Pumpfun's "Group Coins" update may narrow the gap between the two. Currently, Pumpfun has regained the lead in daily token issuance, suggesting that some creators are returning to Pumpfun.

If the new feature works as expected, the team publishing feature could accelerate this trend. We might see more meme projects formed by teams (e.g., influencer alliances, developer collaborations, DAO-style communities) choose PumpFun as their launch platform. This leverages PumpFun's traditional strength in numbers while adding a layer of quality control.

In other words, if multisig teams catch on, the average "seriousness" of Pumpfun tokens could rise. More legitimate projects and fewer one-off scams could attract traders who might otherwise stick with LetsBonk. This is Pumpfun's attempt to shift its image from a "casino" to something more community-driven, without completely losing its speculative nature.

LetsBonk Daily Active Wallet

However, BONKBot isn't standing still. LetsBonk still has a hardcore community and brand, and has been more innovative than Pumpfun over the past few months.

Pumpfun’s belated response resolves some issues, but BONKBot could retaliate in kind. If Pumpfun’s PUMP token begins offering holders additional benefits like fee discounts or revenue sharing alongside these new issuance features, LetsBonk could respond by issuing a token that further incentivizes its community, perhaps through airdrops or larger rewards for creators and traders using its platform.

In fact, LetsBonk already uses 50% of its fees to buy back and burn BONK and support validators, indirectly rewarding its ecosystem. To keep pace, PumpFun may need to consider increasing creator rewards or introducing new incentives for PUMP holders. Competitive pressure is intensifying, creating an "arms race" for features and rewards that will ultimately benefit Solana's meme coin traders and the community.

Pumpfun vs. LetsBonk Revenue Comparison

From a trader’s perspective, the short-term outlook for Pumpfun is cautiously optimistic. The platform is clearly working to regain its credibility, and if Group Coins can lead to some headline-grabbing token launches, it would be validation that Pumpfun’s strategy is sound.

In the coming weeks, we may see PumpFun's market share gradually recover to over 50%. Some traders have already begun positioning for this reversal. PUMP's price has risen by over 30% since August, indicating growing confidence in the platform. Furthermore, further structural upgrades could attract more liquidity: major players who previously avoided PumpFun due to the risk of a potential fallout may be tempted to enter the market if multi-sig teams become the norm.

On the other hand, BONKBot's prospects remain strong. It maintains a leading position in terms of user trust and community sentiment. Many traders genuinely appreciate the atmosphere and transparency of the BONK ecosystem. Even if Pumpfun regains its numerical advantage, LetsBonk will still have a loyal user base.

Pumpfun's new features must not only lead to increased token issuance but also boost active trading volume and user retention to truly defeat BONKBot in the long term. We must observe whether the average lifespan (and trading volume) of Pumpfun's tokens increases with the team's issuance. If not, and the update merely fosters a "pump and dump" scenario, then Pumpfun may still have not addressed its core issues, while BONKBot may continue to lead in key metrics like trading volume and fee revenue.

Summarize

The competition between Pumpfun and BONKBot centers on community incentives and platform trust. BONKBot initially gained an advantage thanks to its high transaction fee share (1%) and ecosystem buyback mechanism, while Pumpfun has recently attempted to win back lapsed users through "Group Coins" (issued by a multi-sig team) and a meager commission (0.05%).

Pumpfun’s “Group Coins” update was a pivotal moment in this competition. It signaled that Pumpfun was shifting away from pure speed and “Christmas tree” releases to a more grounded strategy, arguably borrowing from BONKBot’s community-first approach.

This is good news for Solana meme coin traders: competition is forcing each platform to improve its issuance methods, introduce fairer reward mechanisms, and drive more innovation. If Pumpfun can capitalize on this momentum, it now has a chance to close the gap with BONKBot. Keep an eye out in the coming weeks as community sentiment shifts from outright hostility to a mix of hope and skepticism.

Ultimately, Pumpfun’s latest move could level the playing field with BONKBot by the end of 2025. Expect the Solana meme coin market to remain volatile and highly competitive, but potentially healthier than it was just a few months ago.

If “Group Coins” succeeds, the era of one-person Christmas tree scams may fade away, and we will see more team-driven meme projects competing for the next hundredfold return, providing new opportunities for traders on Pumpfun and BONKBot.

We’ll continue to monitor the progress of the “team token” era as it unfolds, but for now, the race is far from over, and that’s a bullish sign for those of us in the thick of it.