Pump.fun ICO Raises $600M Despite Early Challenges

In a significant test of decentralized infrastructure speed and access, the pump.fun Initial Coin Offering (ICO) achieved an unexpected magnitude.

Rapid Fundraising

The project successfully raised $500 million on-chain, reaching a $4 billion fully-diluted valuation (FDV). Notably, an additional $100 million flowed in through centralized crypto exchanges (CEXs).

The Saturday sale saw participation from over 10,000 different addresses across the Solana network. A substantial 12.5% of the total token supply ($0.004 each) was snapped up in just 12 minutes, totaling 125 billion token units.

Movement and Availability

Despite initial concerns about token scarcity, PUMP’s price climbed rapidly in the following days, briefly exceeding the opening price by over 70%. As this report goes live, the value has retreated to a ~14% increase, leading to a current FDV of $4.6 billion.

The record-breaking pace of the sale brought availability front and center for participants. It highlighted a bizarre advantage for decentralized exchanges (DEXs): buying access proved significantly more accessible over Solana’s network than on traditional trading platforms.

“I have a very medium, luke-warm take, and it’s that this is the first time that I can think of [” a sale like this].” – Fabiano Boccaccio, Blockworks Research Analyst

“Historically, if anybody gave you the option — either do this [token sale] on a centralized exchange versus on like decentralized rails — you would always do it on a centralized exchange, because it’s typically more performant; it’s more stable.”

“I think this is the only example that I can think of where, like, you got fucked if you tried to do it on a centralized exchange. And if you did it on a decentralized [exchange] — like on Solana itself — you actually managed to get in. I think the average check size is like 500 as well. So, like, you didn’t have to be particularly sophisticated to get in.” – Fabiano Boccaccio

Historical Significance

Blockworks Research analyst Ryan Connor cites this event as potentially splitting token launch methods going forward. Boccaccio concurred: “It dispels the myth that Solana is unstable and you can’t do anything on it.” The analyst added, referring to Solana’s past outages, “What a lot of .eth’s have said historically is that you can’t do anything, you can’t trust Solana, necessarily.”

Boccaccio further pointed out that the outcome “outperformed CEXs, and I think it also speaks to Hyperliquid in that it’s able to capture some volume.”