If Pump.fun becomes the "Quick Hand of the Crypto Circle"

Author: Joyce, Frost, BlockBeats

Pump.fun is the most unique product in this cycle. Since its launch over four months ago, more than 1.17 million tokens have been released on Pump.fun, with total revenue exceeding $50 million. How should we understand this number? Compared to the top traffic product Uniswap during the previous bull market, it is estimated that Uniswap Labs had an annual revenue of about $25 million to $30 million.

It can be said that Pump.fun is not a typical Web3 project; it does not have a complex token economics model or a DAO governance mechanism. However, with precise market positioning, Pump.fun has created a profitable business market. Under the dominance of the attention economy, many people interpret the sustained prosperity of the meme coin track as an advantage of short videos over long videos. So, in the era of "everyone issuing tokens," can newcomers still share in the pie? With the attention economy combined with extreme PVP, what new tricks can meme coins play?

The Person Who Burned Himself to Promote Meme Coins is Still Streaming

Do you remember the developer who burned himself to promote his meme coin a month ago? On June 27, last Thursday, he was still live streaming on Twitter.

This developer is named Mikol. On May 17, he launched a meme coin called TruthOrDare (DARE) on Pump.fun. At that time, Pump.fun did not have a live streaming feature and could only post images in the comments. Mikol physically demonstrated the highlights of Season 1 to the community by live streaming on Twitch, pouring isopropyl alcohol on himself and having friends shoot fireworks in his direction. Amidst the gasps from fans and the rise of DARE, his body caught fire, and he suffered third-degree burns and was sent to the hospital.

The token DARE saw a 12-fold increase on the day Mikol was burned, but quickly returned to zero the next day. Mikol's story was reported by the crypto community media Decrypt, attracting much attention. Faced with such heat, Mikol, lying in the ICU, recorded a video to tell the community that he would not give up on operations, saying, "You will see a better me."

Mikol is not the only one who issues a meme coin and hopes for a price increase through extreme behavior. The Solana meme craze has brought in many crypto newcomers and spawned many meme coins that are monitored in seconds. In addition to Mikol's "burn coin," there were also meme coins like "LIVEWITHMOM," which live-streamed the exposure of private body parts to "ask for purchases."

Although the lifespans of these meme coins are extremely short and very few have a market cap exceeding $1 million, the combination of live streaming and token issuance has allowed many low-income individuals to find a wealth code.

A week after this incident, Pump.fun launched its live streaming feature, and the community's first reaction was to advise token issuers, "Please do not self-immolate for profit."

As Mikol's story drew community attention, many expressed that such behavior was too pathological and contrary to the original spirit of crypto, with some advising Mikol to find a good job after he recovered. However, after his condition stabilized, Mikol started live streaming on Twitch again and simultaneously on Pump.fun. As he wished, his return to live streaming pushed DARE to rise again by 15 times.

That surge only lasted a day, and DARE's price continued to decline, seemingly lacking further upward momentum. But since then, Mikol has frequently streamed while bandaged, performing acts like eating raw eggs, dry swallowing cinnamon powder, and sharing his recovery routine. New members have also joined his "TruthOrDare family," showcasing their skills like eating mustard and raw chili peppers.

Unless in very rare circumstances, it may be difficult for Mikol and his DARE to regain the attention they once had. There are more Mikols online, hoping to gain community attention through sufficiently abstract and impactful performances, allowing their memes to soar.

Those who naturally attract high traffic have already entered the token issuance arena. From Jenner to Mother, Father, and others, the celebrity coin wave has allowed issuing teams and early followers to profit immensely. Although figures like Vitalik have expressed opposition to this phenomenon, it is hard to stop the trend in the crypto community, where "entertainment to death" is becoming increasingly prevalent.

It may be considered that the influx of newcomers into the crypto community comes from the "sinking market." The meme coin market is still vast, but unlike the meme coins of DOGE and PEPE that had some connection to the crypto community back in the day, the current meme coin craze points to a new direction, targeting the sinking market outside the crypto community.

The Crypto Market is Experiencing a Shift from PGC to UGA

There are many realistic reasons for the emergence of the meme craze. Indeed, the appeal of crypto narratives in this bull market is not as strong as before. Compared to the opaque distribution of chips and grand narratives that do not land, newcomers are more willing to use memes as their first experience in entering the space.

Behind this is an increasing number of users seeing through the ultimate PVP logic. Regardless of how variable the narratives are, they are merely to create a sufficiently Ponzi-like scheme for the next person to take over. The market is not lacking in people issuing tokens; it is just lacking those who can tell the token issuance story well. Since the community consensus has become that "the essence of value coins is also a type of air coin," it is better to go straight to the point and issue tokens themselves. The birth of Pump.fun is timely.

Pump.fun allows users to issue their own meme coins at an extremely low cost (0.02 SOL) with just one click. Rounds of memes complete their rise and collapse within a few hours, with over 10,000 tokens issued daily on Pump.fun, accounting for over 80% of the total token volume in the Solana ecosystem. Recently, Pump.fun's daily revenue has ranged from $450,000 to $1 million, and total revenue has exceeded $50 million since its launch a few months ago.

As pointed out in an analysis report released by Youbi Capital in May, the popularity of low liquidity assets is an inherent response to the current cycle's insufficient on-site liquidity. There is also a potential metaphor for the sharp increase in the number of tokens issued after the shift from PGA (Professional Generated Asset) to UGA (User Generated Asset), leading to increasingly dispersed consensus.

However, new opportunities still exist.

Three days ago, DEX Screener launched the token issuance platform Moonshot. On its first day, over 7,000 tokens were issued. At the same time, Solana received community recognition for launching the blinks feature, which allows trading tokens on Twitter. The meme coin SC, combining these two hot topics, saw a rise of over a hundred times in two days, indicating that the market is eager to grab a piece of the token issuance platform's cake, and users are looking forward to new stories following Pump.fun.

After all, the history of crypto technology has unprecedentedly and significantly lowered the speed and threshold for asset issuance and trading, and its potential application market is still vast. As long as the community's demand for "monetizing attention" remains, there will still be narratives to tell in the crypto market.

What Would Happen if Live Streaming Occurred in Web3?

In the traditional internet, the "attention economy" industry has developed for about 20 years, transitioning from forums and tieba to the graphic and text microblogging era, and then to the short video and live streaming era. Such a trajectory is also being played out in the crypto field.

On May 29, Pump.fun announced the launch of its live streaming feature. For a site focused on making money from meme coins, users indeed have no need to watch live streams. However, live streaming, as the form with the highest information carrying capacity and the most scene sense and emotional impact, combined with the asset issuance function, is a promising application scenario from the perspective of the attention economy.

Simplifying Commercialization to the Extreme

The path to commercialization in Web3 is entirely different from that of the traditional internet, but in terms of the attention economy, typical Web2 cases can provide some insights for the crypto industry.

Taking Kuaishou as an example, in 2013, Kuaishou, which had been established for less than two years, decided to transform from a GIF-making tool into an internet community. Users produced content on Kuaishou, recording and sharing their lives and creativity through short videos and interacting with fans. Unlike emerging platforms like Douyin, Kuaishou's user positioning is "average social people," primarily consisting of young people in second- and third-tier cities.

In 2014, YY anchors with a loyal fan base in the sinking market joined Kuaishou, at that time Kuaishou had a monthly active user count of 1 million. By the end of 2016, Kuaishou's monthly active users surpassed 64 million. During the rapid growth of Kuaishou in these two years, YY system anchors occupied the top four positions on Kuaishou's list of leading anchors.

Kuaishou maintained the characteristics of the sinking market community, not signing internet celebrities or stars, and the fair algorithm mechanism encouraged the vigorous development of UGC content. Compared to other products at the time, Kuaishou stood out with its unique "decentralized community" model.

In 2017, Kuaishou was the first to seize the live streaming dividend, becoming the largest single live streaming platform globally. According to Kuaishou's prospectus, from 2017 to 2019, the company's revenues were 8.3 billion, 20.3 billion, and 39.1 billion yuan, respectively, with live streaming revenues of 7.9 billion, 18.6 billion, 31.4 billion, and 17.3 billion yuan, accounting for 95.18%, 91.63%, 80.31%, and 68.38%, respectively. It is evident that live streaming was Kuaishou's core business and its foundational color at that time.

After thriving, Kuaishou had to adjust its content ecology. After all, traditional Web2 companies need to undergo commercialization transformation. In this process, only those content producers with high audience consumption levels, who meet traditional social values, and survive in fierce competition can remain in the end.

Looking back, rather than saying Kuaishou successfully navigated the sinking market, it is more accurate to say that Kuaishou targeted the new user market in the attention economy track. Similarly, token issuance platforms aimed at crypto newcomers do not need to consider "commercial transformation."

In traditional internet giants, whether content platforms or shopping platforms, they all hope to show users "there are good things worth watching/buying here," because only content that is recognized and loved by more users has commercial value, thus bringing profits to the platform. However, Pump.fun does not need commercialization; its profit model is extremely simple and pure. It only needs to show "there are enough coins and traders here." As long as there are transactions, Pump.fun can make money.

Currently, although Pump.fun has opened comment sections and live streaming features, users log onto Pump.fun just to complete the buying or selling process. Discussions about meme coins mainly occur on Twitter, and meme coin developers with live streaming ideas mostly choose platforms like Twitch and Kick for promotional live streams.

On the Pump.fun interface, users can only choose based on the number of comments and token market cap. If there were a live streaming section, would "live streaming god coins" emerge on Pump.fun?

Human Nature Games and Regulatory Challenges

Currently, some meme display platforms have emerged, such as Game.com, which just surpassed 7,000 followers on Twitter, offering paid listing services for tokens. By paying 0.8 SOL, users can publish their issued meme coins on this platform to gain more attention.

However, the Pump.fun team seems uninterested in exploring more on existing services. After all, a small team that has earned over $40 million in half a year and maintains a stable daily income of $600,000 indeed lacks the motivation to break the product or innovate the narrative; positioning itself as a "tool" is already sufficient.

As more newcomers flood into the crypto field, perhaps live streaming could become a differentiating label for other token issuance platforms like Moonshot.

However, the numerous x to earn projects that have collapsed in Web3 in the past have shown that no matter how clever the design, it cannot challenge human nature. On June 13, a user launched a meme coin themed around a sheep wearing a hat on Pump.fun and live-streamed simultaneously. However, shortly after the live stream began, while the comments were still discussing the sheep's actions, the sniper who bought in at the token launch quickly sold most of the tokens at a high price, causing the token price to plummet.

After the token crashed, the meme coin issuer explained in the comments, "My token balance remains unchanged and can be verified through solscan. If I were just trying to make quick money, why would I live stream my sheep but not sell my tokens?"

Not selling may be because the token had not yet gone on Raydium. In the end, this token did not reach a market cap of $60,000. The issuer never live-streamed his sheep again.

Additionally, regulatory issues are also something that such platforms need to pay attention to. If the live streaming format is combined with asset issuance, various extreme and vulgar behaviors to attract attention are bound to emerge. When Pump.fun announced the launch of its live streaming feature, the community's biggest concern was how the platform would review extreme content. When token issuers post inappropriate behaviors such as pornography or more extreme actions, should Pump.fun intervene to prevent potential criminal activities?

Conclusion

Returning to those meme coin issuers mentioned at the beginning of this article, one can sense the content ecology of traditional internet short video platforms from years ago. After several years of development, these platforms have explored highly lucrative business models.

As a content form that provides "immersive experiences," live streaming has made people realize how simple the gathering speed of "traffic" can be through imaginative forms. Meanwhile, channels for monetizing traffic, such as tipping and selling goods, have allowed content producers to have a certain degree of power to counterbalance platform capital.

In the crypto field, the platform's control dissipates in an instant. Yet attention remains the core driving force propelling the entire market forward. If live streaming occurs in Web3, what kind of stories will unfold? Can the extreme utilization of traffic find new expressions in a decentralized environment?

Looking back over the years, amidst the continuous rupture and reconstruction of consensus, the crypto industry has seen countless projects transition from "innovation" to collapse. The emergence of Pump.fun is just the beginning.