Pump's bullet hits right between the eyes—has Solana's story come to an end?
TechFlow Selected TechFlow Selected
Pump's bullet hits right between the eyes—has Solana's story come to an end?
P小白's world has collapsed!
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: 🔫Scof💀, ChainCatcher
Editor: TB, ChainCatcher
The Bullet from Pump Hits Right Between the Eyes
Just moments ago, alon, co-founder of Pump.fun, announced that the official X account of Pump.fun was hacked and had posted a scam token named "PUMP," warning users to be cautious of risks.
As the most active meme coin launchpad in the Solana ecosystem, Pump.fun once became a wealth-making myth for retail investors through its two-stage mechanism of "internal pool incubation + external market explosion." Tokens first accumulate liquidity within the platform via a bonding curve mechanism, then automatically migrate to top-tier DEX Raydium to create a liquidity pool once trading volume exceeds the $69,000 threshold—completing a closed loop from project launch to market speculation. This precisely designed system operated at full throttle in 2024:
From April 1 last year to today, tokens launched from Pump.fun contributed $346 billion in trading volume to Raydium, accounting for half of the DEX's total traffic. Of the $197 million in fees collected by the platform, $104 million came directly from Pump.fun transactions.
However, when celebrities like Trump entered with flash-meme tokens (e.g., TRUMP, MELANIA), this game of musical chairs began revealing its raw extraction logic. On-chain data shows that over 70% of meme coins exhibit a "peak at listing" pattern in the external market phase, with an average lifespan of less than 48 hours.
An even more dangerous signal comes from a broad retreat in liquidity. On February 24, only one token graduating from Pump.fun barely surpassed a $1 million market cap, indicating that on-chain speculation has nearly frozen. Trading depth for meme coins on Raydium has shrunk by over 90% from its peak, while stablecoin market cap on the Solana chain has seen net outflows exceeding $1 billion over the past 30 days—the largest capital drain since the FTX collapse.
This breakdown is no accident. When project teams, platforms, and celebrities form an "extraction iron triangle," and when the mathematical model of bonding curves becomes merely a tool for draining funds, retail confidence has been worn down by repeated "dump-at-listing" scenarios. The failure of Pump.fun is not just a microcosm of Solana’s liquidity crisis—it is also a brutal interrogation of the entire crypto world’s obsession with meme narratives. When the bubble bursts and the party ends, who will clean up the wreckage left behind?
SOL Drops Over 50% From Peak, Ecosystem Slumps
As one of the best-performing public blockchain tokens in 2024, Solana rode the wave of Pump and meme mania to surge nearly 200% throughout the year.
But since Trump launched a token on Solana on January 18, this tide appears to have finally crashed ashore: SOL price hit a record high of $295 on January 19, then sharply reversed course, dropping over 50%.
With only three days remaining until Solana's largest-ever token unlock event—worth $2 billion—11.2 million SOL will enter circulation, mostly acquired through FTX auctions at a cost basis of $64, potentially creating massive selling pressure.
Beyond poor token performance, according to Defillama data, Solana’s ecosystem TVL has declined from a peak of $12.19 billion to $7.22 billion today, while daily transaction fee revenue continues to fall.
In addition, Solana’s 24-hour net inflow data shows $260 million flowed out on just January 18 and 19 alone, with subsequent capital inflows steadily declining, far below previous levels during Pump cycles.
Moreover, other key indicators are equally bleak, with major Solana protocol tokens showing clear weakness over the past seven days:
Chart: Solana ecosystem market performance on Rootdata
Overall, the ecosystem presents a picture of "when the tree falls, the monkeys scatter."
This inevitably raises the question: Has Solana’s story come to an end?
Solana Labs Co-Founder Toly Is Afraid of the Crash Too!
Facing the risk of token price collapse, the Solana ecosystem is undergoing its greatest fear, uncertainty, and FUD since the FTX implosion. Analysts estimate that scammers have profited over $10 billion during the entire meme coin hype cycle.
In response to these unavoidable realities, many community members have spoken up.
Toly, co-founder of Solana Labs, has long advocated healthy technological development and innovation. He has repeatedly urged builders to return to innovation and build quality projects. While never making direct attacks, his conversations with other community members on X frequently reveal his dissatisfaction with Pump culture. In response to criticism from long-term supporters, he bluntly stated: "The assholes that mess with markets to max extract can go f’ themselves." The target of this remark is obvious.
Crypto KOL @cobie has also repeatedly pointed out the flaws of the PVP model. He said: "The current market dynamic is participants rushing into scams like moths to a flame. Most know it’s a scam, but their goal is simply to sell to the next person at 3x the price. They want to get rich in two weeks, not two to four years. Players hope they’ll be the one to win big next time."
Of course, the community is attempting self-rescue. On February 26, Solana introduced SIMD-0228, proposing a 50% target staking rate. If staking exceeds 50%, issuance decreases and yields drop; if below 50%, issuance increases and yields rise. Minimum inflation is set at 0%, while maximum inflation follows the current emission curve. The proposal aims to shift SOL issuance to a market-driven model.
In addition, a Solana spot ETF has become another lifeline—prediction platform Polymarket data indicates an 85.4% chance of approval before 2025, with a 34% chance of approval by June. If realized, following the capital magnetism seen with Bitcoin ETFs (attracting hundreds of billions) and Ethereum ETFs (tens of billions), Solana could see injections of tens of billions in fresh capital.
Solana’s predicament is no isolated case—it reflects the broader industry-wide phenomenon of "speculation devouring innovation."
As KOL @0xNing0x summarized: "We’re now entering the settlement phase of this cycle. P-bros are MVPs, Solana, Pump.fun, Jupiter are best supports, TRUMP is a free winner, AI16Z is a free winner, JLP holders are free winners. On the losing side, SVP is Base and Virtual, while Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, ZkSync, Starknet are the irrelevant top, mid, jungle, and support."
For now, Solana may have only two paths forward: either rely on external capital such as ETFs to artificially extend its life—risking deeper dependence on financial gambling—or follow Toly’s call for "radical surgery," enduring short-term pain to rebuild developer faith.
Join TechFlow official community to stay tuned
Telegram:https://t.me/TechFlowDaily
X (Twitter):https://x.com/TechFlowPost
X (Twitter) EN:https://x.com/BlockFlow_News
ChainCatcher 链捕手
