Cryptonews Features

Why Pump.fun is in Crisis — and What It Means for Meme Coins

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The suspension of @pumpdotfun on X comes as the platform plots a $1 billion token sale — but there are bigger problems too.

Features writer

Connor Sephton

Features writer

Connor Sephton

About Author

Connor Sephton is a journalist based in London, who also works for Sky News and the BBC as a radio newsreader and online reporter. He has covered crypto since 2018 — reporting from major conferences...

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Last updated:

June 17, 2025

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Pump.fun has already been banned in the U.K. — and now, the controversial meme coin site appears to be vanishing from X, too.

The platform, which allows anyone to create their own cryptocurrency, has been suspended from the social network.

An account belonging to its founder Alon Cohen has also been affected, marking the latest setback for the Solana launchpad.

The X restrictions happened without warning, and led to feverish speculation about the potential cause.

While some have suggested that it could be linked to regulatory action from the Securities and Exchange Commission, this appears unlikely. Earlier this year, the agency argued that most meme coins in circulation don’t fall under its remit.

Allegations are also swirling that pump.fun and a slew of affiliated accounts have been using “black market APIs” to track meme coin discussions on X — potentially saving as much as $100,000 a month on official alternatives. This would be a violation of the tech giant’s terms of service.

It’s fair to say that this is exceedingly unfortunate timing for this crypto platform, which is currently attempting to raise $1 billion through a token sale. Disappearing from X starves pump.fun of visibility, at a time when VC investment into the digital assets sector is already slowing down at pace.

Reports have suggested that executives are considering sharing revenues among tokenholders. That would have been a compelling proposition at the height of the meme coin craze earlier this year — when income from fees was regularly exceeding $5 million a day. But given how this has fallen dramatically in recent months, and now rarely breaks $1.5 million, it’s no longer as attractive.

Critics have also raised fears that the debut of $PUMP could end up detracting attention from the same meme coins this website was designed to promote, meaning future launches would be nowhere near as successful.

It’s interesting to see how the drama surrounding pump.fun’s online presence has affected the value of prominent meme coins, which have been performing disproportionately worse than most major cryptocurrencies over the past 24 hours. Fartcoin is down by 10% over this timeframe, with the likes of PEPE and BONK sinking by similar levels. It’s also been an expensive day for $TRUMP — now back below $10 after a crypto dinner led to an artificial surge in interest.

Over on X, reaction to pump.fun’s suspension has almost been gleeful in some circles, with @Yagobiverse writing:

“If you’re sad @pumpdotfun is gone, you’re part of the problem. Same scammers, same dumb money, zero giveback. Retail got nuked. Let’s rebuild with real builders, not greed-fueled leeches. @a1lon9 never gave back. Just raised more. Pure cancer of the cycle.”

This is a nod to how speculative bubbles like meme coins often create the frothy excesses that bring otherwise healthy bull markets crashing down — dragging more established coins like Bitcoin and Ether with it.

In fairness, this isn’t really a new phenomenon — and it would be unfair to pin all of the blame on pump.fun. Impressionable newcomers with dreams of getting rich have been burned by many of the crazes to take the crypto world by storm in recent years — from non-fungible tokens to initial coin offerings.

And in any case, there are signs that the mania surrounding meme coins has now well and truly run its course. Almost 10.7 million tokens have made their way into the ecosystem over the past year or so. There’s simply too much competition, and it’s mathematically impossible for all of them to do well.

Data from Dune Analytics shows activity has started to dry up substantially. Whereas more than 60,000 new tokens a day were being launched on pump.fun during a dizzying peak back in January 2025, that figure has more than halved. Over 40,000 unique addresses were creating cryptocurrencies on this website at one point — numbers that have now languished to 16,000.

In the weeks, days and months to come, there’s a decent chance that @pumpdotfun and affiliated accounts will iron out the kinks with X — and get their profiles back. But after a wild and insanely lucrative run, riding high on the momentum sparked by Donald Trump’s election win last November, it may be all downhill from here.

Another crypto craze will rapidly take its place soon enough.