A livestream that completely crashed Pump.Fun
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A livestream that completely crashed Pump.Fun
For pump.fun, Alon's interview was undoubtedly a public relations disaster.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsBy Cookie
At 4 a.m. today, pump.fun co-founder @a1lon9 appeared on crypto KOL @notthreadguy’s Twitch channel for a live voice interview.
Prior to the stream, some joked in English-speaking circles that this was crypto's "FOMC." Judging by the outcome, the broadcast indeed significantly impacted prices—$PUMP dropped nearly 15% during the stream and almost 20% over the day, briefly falling below a $3 billion market cap.
For pump.fun, alon’s interview was undoubtedly a public relations disaster.
What did alon say during the livestream?
On the $PUMP Airdrop
threadguy: Will there be a $PUMP airdrop? If so, when?
alon: As we promised at TGE, there will be a $PUMP airdrop. We’ll honor our commitment and ensure it rewards the community members who helped us grow over the past year and a half. We want the airdrop to be well-executed, drive ecosystem trading volume, and support long-term growth—that’s important to us. Right now, we’re focused on redirecting attention and hype back to pump.fun. That said, the airdrop won’t happen in the immediate future.
There are many rumors about the $PUMP airdrop—speculation about eligibility criteria or distribution mechanics—but I think fewer than five people on Earth currently know the actual plan. So all these rumors you see are unreliable. We take the airdrop very seriously and want it to truly serve the community.
threadguy: What percentage of $PUMP will go to the airdrop?
alon: I can’t disclose that now, but it will be fair to the community.
threadguy: How will you handle post-airdrop selling pressure?
alon: I can’t reveal specific mechanisms yet, but we’re taking it seriously.
On $PUMP Buybacks
threadguy: Will you continue buying back $PUMP from the open market?
alon: I can’t fully disclose our plans, but our on-chain actions will answer that question.
threadguy: Can you share how much $PUMP you’ve bought back since TGE?
alon: Initially, we bought back around $20 million worth of $PUMP. Over the past four days, it’s been approximately $550,000. (After hearing “$550,000 over four days,” threadguy remarked twice: “You guys have so much money!”)
On Competition from Bonk
threadguy: Why do you think Bonk managed to surpass pump.fun in trading volume and market share so quickly?
alon: There’s certainly been a lot of short-term hype and competitive tactics, but we remain focused on the long term. I mean, over recent months, the products people use haven’t fundamentally changed, nor has the market seen real growth. To achieve 10x or even 100x expansion in this space, we need substantial changes.
The long term matters, but so does the short term for long-term success. We’ll inject significant liquidity into our ecosystem and engage with communities actively building within it, ensuring they have the best chance to succeed.
threadguy: How will pump.fun regain absolute dominance in the “launchpad wars”?
alon: In the short term, supporting active communities within our current ecosystem is key—each vibrant community has brought us here today. But looking further ahead, beyond just making our platform-launched tokens successful, we need major product improvements. Everyone remembers the explosive market at the end of last year and start of this one. While crypto is cyclical, our current downturn isn’t just due to cycles—we also need transformation.
We need a better ecosystem and mechanism to effectively coordinate communities, creators, and traders; a better way to bring outsiders into this space; and a way to keep memes fresh with new, interesting narratives instead of the same group endlessly hyping tired ideas. For the first point, we’ve already invested significant time and effort. For the second, the pump.fun mobile app was built precisely for this. For the third, we must continuously invest resources to attract top-tier creators.
But let me stress again: focusing on the short term and bringing resources back to pump.fun is essential for long-term development.
threadguy: You’ve been buying one pump.fun ecosystem meme coin daily recently—will this strategy be effective and sustainable long-term?
alon: This is just a small part of our broader plan.
On the Meme Market
threadguy: Do you think the meme market will return to its previous peak?
alon: Absolutely. If I didn’t believe the market could grow 10x or even 100x, I wouldn’t be here. There’s still massive upside potential—it’s just a matter of timing and execution. But I believe we need more sustainable ways to attract users. Rapid price surges are exciting, but steep crashes after excessive frenzy may scare away newcomers, possibly for good due to negative impressions.
Sustainable growth requires bold, sweeping changes.
threadguy: So what exactly will you do?
alon: First, we’re no longer building just a single launchpad product—we’re building a comprehensive pump.fun ecosystem. That means we need exceptional teams. Our current team is strong, but we’ll keep hiring talent—even pursuing strategic acquisitions like Kolscan as previously announced. We’ll keep watching the market for opportunities to expand, whether in social or other domains.
Earlier I mentioned major changes—one of which will be PumpSwap 2.0. I can’t share many details yet, but the fee structure will be entirely different, designed to incentivize teams that create more interesting meme coins to join and build long-term. The CTO incentive update we rolled out a week ago laid the groundwork, encouraging creators to build within existing meme coin communities.
Whether creators, streamers, artists, or startup founders, we aim to draw them into our ecosystem—not just to deploy a token and leave after a few days of hype, but to build something sustainable. We still have much work and iteration ahead to achieve this.
The mobile app is crucial. Despite recent fluctuations in overall user numbers, the app’s user count and engagement hit new highs almost daily. We can improve how newcomers access and become familiar with this space.
Live streaming is another key focus—how can information dissemination be driven by the market rather than controlled by social media algorithms? That’s part of our long-term vision.
threadguy asked other questions too, such as whether pump.fun risks becoming the OpenSea of the meme coin赛道, or if they’d sign non-crypto streamers.
But none of that mattered anymore—the final impact of this stream was reigniting players’ anger toward pump.fun and causing $PUMP to drop nearly 20%.
Why was this a PR disaster?
Perhaps alon didn’t intend this as a “PR” response to recent dissatisfaction with pump.fun, but rather as “promotion” targeting a broader audience—which is why he chose to appear on threadguy’s Twitch stream. Yet the outcome was that even his decision not to host the interview on his own platform became one outlet for player frustration.
After TGE, $PUMP briefly rose before entering a sustained decline, leaving even supporters speechless. Worse, four out of the five pump.fun ecosystem meme coins that alon openly bought and promoted are already in loss territory.
When alon first bought the pump.fun ecosystem meme coin $neet, its market cap briefly spiked to $30 million with a 365% one-minute candle. Many thought this was a promising start—especially supporters who believe pump.fun still hosts the most vibrant meme coin culture, whose stories would eventually rebound. But alon didn’t continue pumping, and momentum-driven buying quickly dried up. $neet has returned to its pre-purchase market cap, and the pump effect from alon’s subsequent buys weakened each time.
This made his claim of “injecting substantial liquidity into the ecosystem” sound deeply unconvincing and ironic. It even served as free advertising for competitor Bonk:
Bonk immediately announced during the stream that 1% of platform revenue would support its top meme coins
The confirmation that the $PUMP airdrop won’t happen anytime soon reignited player outrage. Even gainzy, one of pump.fun’s biggest streamers, voiced criticism during the stream:
Some people profit, others lose. Platforms like Hyperliquid give loyal users six- or even seven-figure airdrops—they’re happy and recharged, then keep trading on Hyperliquid. Especially with Bitcoin hitting record highs, everyone needs more money. Even a smaller airdrop share would be better than endless delays. Now, if the airdrop disappoints, the backlash against pump.fun will be even greater and harder to contain.
Who the hell in the “trenches” cares about streamers and creators? It’s the “trenches” that made pump.fun rich—you need to make these people wealthy too. It’s not rocket science.
On top of that, alon’s entire interview was filled with “can’t disclose this” and “can’t reveal that” responses. At a time when trust in pump.fun is nearly gone, this deepened the sense of distrust—Is it really that they can’t disclose, or is it that after securing $1 billion, they simply don’t care anymore?
Conclusion
If the resolve alon expressed during the stream can be given time to prove itself, there’s one thing that truly can’t wait—pump.fun, with its $1 billion war chest, desperately needs a better PR team.
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