Written by: White55, Mars Finance
A "Meme Casino" whose revenue fluctuates a hundred times, raised $600 million with a valuation of $4 billion, with VCs and retail investors paying the same price - is this financial innovation, or the most gorgeous harvest script in the history of encryption?
In the early hours of this morning, the cryptocurrency exchange Gate staged a magical realism drama: the official website suddenly launched the public sale countdown page of Pump.fun token PUMP, clearly marked that the issuance of 15 billion tokens (accounting for 15% of the total supply) will start on July 12, priced at 0.04 USDT, and won 600 million US dollars in financing within 72 hours. The page survival time is shorter than the life cycle of Meme coins, and the deletion speed is comparable to the lightning operation of the platform destroying the leeks wallet.
This was not an accidental leak, but a "technical trailer" carefully planned by Crypto Capital.
After all, when Pump.fun, a "casino table" with an annual revenue of US$700 million, suddenly wants to raise US$600 million at a valuation of US$4 billion, it has to create some drama.
This capital game, packaged as a fair public sale, is essentially the leftovers from the VC banquet packaged as "community welfare." The leeks hold up the glow sticks of "participating in history," unaware that they are subscribing to a VIP ticket to the meat grinder.
1. Casino Economics: From SOL Money Printing Machine to Leek Crusher
Back in January 2024, three young men in their early twenties founded Pump.fun. They were tired of being victims of Meme Coin scams, so they decided to open their own casino.
Zero-threshold coin issuance + joint curve harvesting, this combination of punches instantly detonated the crypto world: users create tokens for free, and the platform makes money with 5% transaction fees; when the token market value exceeds 100,000 US dollars, it will automatically log on to the Raydium Exchange, completing a seamless transition from the gambling table to the slaughterhouse.
The data bear witness to this absurd carnival:
5.7 million tokens were issued in one and a half years, accounting for 71% of Solana chain’s daily token issuance
On January 2, 2025, the daily revenue was 14 million US dollars, comparable to the production line of money printing machines.
On March 9, 2025, revenue plummeted to $110,000, a drop of more than 99%.
This roller coaster-like income curve perfectly illustrates what an "emotion-driven economy" is - when the market is in FOMO, it is alchemy that turns stone into gold; when the hot money recedes, it is more embarrassed than a naked swimmer on the beach.
The real black humor lies in the user data: in May 2025, among the 594,000 active wallets, only 3.6% made a profit of more than US$500, and more than half of the users suffered losses, with some losses reaching millions of dollars.
How can this be called a decentralized financial revolution? It is clearly a Las Vegas casino moved to the blockchain, and a probability game where the banker takes all is packaged as a fairy tale of "financial democratization."
2. Valuation magic: When bubbles wear high-end suits
A valuation of $4 billion is enough to shock traditional financial elites. After all, the US IPO valuation of stablecoin giant Circle is only $7.2 billion, and the essence of Pump.fun's business is a highly cyclical speculative service provider.
The platform has its own metaphysical logic of "market value management":
Price-to-sales ratio (P/S) 5.63 times: Compared with DeFi protocols such as Uniswap, it seems reasonable, but deliberately ignores the essence of Meme income like a candle in the wind
Price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) 11.4 times: Assuming that the tokens can take away half of the revenue, but the white paper has not yet explained the dividend mechanism
FDV/Revenue Ratio 64x: Far Exceeding Raydium, PancakeSwap and Other Protocols That Really Create Cash Flow
What is even more ingenious is the design that VCs and retail investors take over at the same price. The private round is US$200 million, and the public round is US$800 million, all with a unified valuation of US$5 billion.
Behind the apparent fairness is the anxiety of early investors who urgently need an exit channel - after all, the platform has sold a total of 182 million US dollars of SOL in exchange for stablecoins, and the liquidity pumping operation is comparable to the encrypted version of the Three Gorges Dam.
When researchers denounced that "MEME's launch platform valuation surpassing DeFi blue chips is a signal of the collapse of industry values", KOLs shouted that it was comparable to Hyperliquid's 4 billion valuation.
They selectively forget: Hyperliquid is a derivatives protocol, and Pump.fun's competitor is actually Bonk, which has a market value of 190 million - this is equivalent to electronically marking the vegetable market as a gold shop scale and then selling potatoes by gram.
3. Financing puzzle: US$600 million to buy a new sickle?
Facing the soul-searching question of "the purpose of financing", Pump.fun's blueprint is full of performance art-style irony:
The founder once claimed that he wanted to create an "investable social platform" to compete with Instagram and TikTok. Translated into human language, it means upgrading Pump.fun from a casino to a casino + live streaming complex of internet celebrities. After all, the online issuance of coins by real dealers can reap another round of metaverse leeks.
The technological upgrade in reality is even more black humor:
Launched self-built AMM (Automated Market Maker): Solve the pain point of "the gambling table is not slippery enough and the leeks run too fast"
Resurrected live broadcast function: Previously forced to close due to users performing dangerous behaviors such as self-immolation on toilets for cryptocurrency speculation
Develop anti-fraud tools: Although there are still attackers on GitHub pretending to be Solana-pumpfun-bot to steal wallets
Ironically, when the platform claimed to build a "Meme ecological closed loop", its competitor Bonk.fun had already seized market share with its community autonomy model. After all, in the crypto world, the subtext of "representing the community" is "cutting gently", and Pump.fun's VC scythe has long been dazzling.
4. Crypto Revelation: When Casinos Become Companies with the Highest Market Value
Pump.fun’s capital feast reflects the sharpest value split in the crypto world:
The attention economy school shouts "traffic is value", packaging FOMO into a new paradigm
Fundamental believers denounced this as an "industry innovation disaster", implying that capital is murdering the ideals of blockchain technology
The deeper metaphor is hidden in the data: the total market value of Meme Coin will evaporate by 40 billion US dollars in 2024, while Pump.fun will erect a monument with a valuation of 4 billion on the ruins. This is very similar to the magical scene during the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, when Goldman Sachs employees counted money while discussing the "necessity of financial innovation."
When the platform calls the loss of 52.5% of users a "community ecosystem", the 60% shrinkage in daily trading volume is glorified as "market sedimentation", and when regulatory warnings (such as the UK FCA ban) are interpreted as "badges of honor" - the entire industry is losing its respect for the essence of value. This carnival in the name of "financial democratization" will eventually become a textbook case of collective hysteria.
Conclusion: A Song of "Mountain Sheep" in the Crypto Age
BTC becomes a peak, contract is like anger
The winding road of the mountain village
Looking at the crypto, I am hesitant
Pumpfun
The new currency carnival has all gone to waste
Xing, leek is bitter
Death, leek bitter
When Zhang Yanghao wrote "When a country prospers, the people suffer; when a country perishes, the people suffer", in the 14th century, he would not have thought that 700 years later, blockchain casinos would be using smart contracts to repeat history. The verdict of "Pumpfun's sickle bites the remaining bones, and the new currency carnival has all turned to dust" has already revealed the essence of this capital game.
When the 404 page of Gate Exchange becomes the best performance art, when VC's private placement shares are waiting for the leeks to take over, when KOL's flattery drowns out the rational voice - the ultimate paradox of the crypto world surfaces: the more devout the belief in decentralization, the more efficient the centralized harvesting.
Future historians looking back at the summer of 2025 might record it like this: That was the year casino owners were no longer satisfied with simply taking a cut; they directly asked gamblers to raise funds to build new casinos.
While the leeks recited "When a company prospers, they suffer; when a company perishes, they suffer" they lined up to subscribe to the preferred shares of the casino's IPO.
Because in this industry, pain itself has become the most addictive consumption.
