The term meme coin supercycle became a popular term in late 2024 and early 2025. During this period, thousands of new tokens emerged, with many experiencing remarkable price surges. Amidst this euphoria, Solana stood out as the busiest network, not only because of its speed but also thanks to the rise of token launchpads like pump.fun, which transformed the way people create tokens and trade meme coins. Pump.fun simplified the token creation process, removing the need for coding skills or complex procedures. In this article, we will take a deep dive into Solana’s launchpad ecosystem, exploring the platforms, key metrics, comparisons, and projections for its future.
Article Summary
- Evolution of Launchpads on Solana: In the past, creating a token on Solana required coding skills and a complex process. Today, pump.fun has emerged as a launchpad that enables instant token creation, removing many of the technical barriers for developers.
- Impact & Risks of Launchpads: Pump.fun triggered an explosion of new tokens and trends such as AI Agent tokens. However, the graduation rate of tokens remains very low, and the risk of rug pulls is still high since creators can retain significant control over the supply.
- Future Direction of Launchpad Competition: Competition within Solana’s launchpad ecosystem is expected to shift from merely chasing volume and revenue to building a flywheel that truly creates long-term value for both communities and creators.
Solana Launchpad Wars
Before the arrival of Solana launchpads such as pump.fun or letsBONK, meme coin or token developers had to create them manually. This process required skills like coding, writing smart contracts, and manually adding liquidity to pools on DEXs (Decentralized Exchanges). Naturally, these steps were time-consuming, making token launches far less efficient.
From the trader’s perspective, caution was essential since insecure smart contracts could grant token creators the ability to mint tokens beyond the intended supply. The risks also increased when token creators held a disproportionately large share of the supply without a clear rationale, especially when the token was merely a meme coin.
Furthermore, liquidity that wasn’t burned gave creators the opportunity to withdraw assets at any time, raising the likelihood of a rug pull. For example, if a creator held more than 50% of the total supply and the liquidity wasn’t burned or locked, it would understandably cast doubt on the creator’s intentions.
Therefore, it’s important to understand that with manual token creation, the creator had to provide their own capital into the liquidity pool on a DEX for the token to be tradable. If the liquidity provider tokens were not burned or locked, the creator retained full control to remove liquidity at any moment, potentially causing the token to crash and lose its value drastically.
Chapter I: Narrative
At the beginning of 2024, pump.fun emerged as a launchpad that allowed users to instantly create tokens and trade them directly on the platform, providing a solution to minimize many of the risks commonly associated with token launches.
Pump.fun sets a fixed supply of 1 billion tokens for every token created on its platform, ensuring that token creators cannot mint additional supply.
In addition, the platform does not require initial liquidity from token creators. Instead, pump.fun employs a bonding curve mechanism, where 85% of the total supply is sold on the platform. SOL raised from these sales is then paired with the remaining 15% of the supply into a liquidity pool on PumpSwap, the official DEX owned by pump.fun. This way, liquidity is automatically and securely established, without the risk of being withdrawn by the token creator.
With this level of accessibility, pump.fun became one of the pioneering Solana launchpads, removing technical barriers that were once complex for token creators. On the other hand, users also gained the opportunity to purchase tokens or meme coins on pump.fun at very low entry prices, opening the door for anyone to participate from the earliest stages.
Chapter II: Catalyst
Interestingly, the token creation process on pump.fun is completely free. This has made pump.fun a major catalyst behind the explosion of new tokens and meme coins in the Solana ecosystem since its inception.
Data from dune.com compiled by 21labs shows that pump.fun reached its peak trading volume between late 2024 and early 2025. This period coincided with the surge of AI Agent-themed tokens and meme coins launched on the Solana network.
Two standout examples are $GOAT and $PNUT, both created through pump.fun. $GOAT emerged as one of the pioneering AI Agent tokens in the Solana ecosystem, while both tokens recorded price increases of more than 1,000% from their initial launch. This trend became a key catalyst driving trading activity and fueling the growth of Solana ecosystem during that time.
The surge in popularity of tokens such as $GOAT and $PNUT from pump.fun not only boosted trading volume but also created a domino effect across the broader Solana ecosystem. This impact was clearly reflected in Solana’s monthly Active Addresses, which reached an all-time high on November 25, 2024. During that period, Solana recorded approximately 136.6 million monthly Active Addresses, accounting for nearly 50% of the total across other major layer-1 blockchains such as Ethereum, Near, BNB Chain, Aptos, TRON, TON, and Avalanche.
Chapter III: The battle between pump.fun vs letsBONK
Although token creation on pump.fun is free, the platform imposes a 1% buy and sell fee on every token transaction that remains within the bonding curve phase.
A token reaches the graduated stage once approximately 85% of its total supply has been sold, which generally corresponds to a market capitalization of around $79,000. During this liquidity migration process, an additional fee of 0.015 SOL is charged, drawn directly from the token’s liquidity rather than paid by the user. This fee serves as a requirement for migrating the token to PumpSwap.
From the high total transaction volume of pump.fun discussed earlier, the direct impact on the platform’s revenue is evident. According to data from DefiLlama, in less than two years since its launch, pump.fun has achieved a cumulative revenue of approximately $743.96 million, making it one of the largest revenue-generating platforms in the crypto ecosystem.
Although pump.fun has achieved remarkable revenue, community sentiment has not always been entirely positive. Many users argue that the platform’s flywheel, a feature designed to drive growth by incentivizing token creators through a share of transaction fees, has not been effective in fostering community loyalty. Instead of encouraging long-term participation, this strategy is often viewed as disproportionately benefiting individual token creators rather than strengthening the pump.fun ecosystem as a whole.
One of the key factors driving negative sentiment toward pump.fun is its low graduation rate, which averages only around 0.7% to 1.5% per month. Out of the hundreds of thousands to millions of tokens launched monthly, only a handful successfully reach graduated status.
This data highlights that the majority of tokens on pump.fun fail to attract trader interest. Many also end up as rug pulls, as token creators often retain significant control over the supply. While pump.fun has introduced a new mechanism that incentivizes the community to take over rug-pulled tokens through an official application process, this initiative has yet to meaningfully shift perceptions, and negative sentiment toward the platform persists.
Amid these criticisms, on July 9, 2025, pump.fun announced the launch of its official token, $PUMP, on X. The token is intended to provide various utilities within the pump.fun ecosystem. So far, the pump.fun team has conducted buybacks of $PUMP using a portion of its revenue.
However, the lingering skepticism within the community has created opportunities for competing launchpads to offer a different approach. LetsBONK has emerged as a community-centric alternative, prioritizing the interests of its users as the foundation of its ecosystem.
LetsBONK, a token launchpad on the Solana network released on April 26, 2025, is part of the broader BONK ecosystem. Unlike pump.fun, letsBONK takes a more community-driven approach. For example, it allocates 1% of its revenue to buy top-performing tokens on its platform, providing direct support to tokens that the community views as most promising.
Based on July data from Blockworks, letsBONK led the launchpad category on the Solana network in both volume and revenue.
This surge came shortly after the implementation of a mechanism that allocates a portion of its revenue to purchase tokens on July 24, 2025, which immediately had a positive impact on letsBONK’s performance.
This achievement marks a pivotal moment in the heated rivalry between pump.fun and letsBONK, signaling a shift in dominance within Solana’s launchpad sector that had been dominated by pump.fun.
Nevertheless, the competition continues, and since early August, pump.fun has once again dominated both in the number of tokens launched and in trading volume.
Comparison of pump.fun vs letsBONK
Although both pump.fun and letsBONK operate as token launchpads on the Solana network, the approaches and features they offer differ. The table below summarizes several key aspects that distinguish the two.
| Aspect | pump.fun | letsBONK |
|---|---|---|
| Launch Date | January 20, 2024 | April 26, 2025 |
| Total Token Deployed | 12.268.180 | 702.521 |
| Total Token Graduated | 138.080 (1,125% of total token deployed) | 7.548 (1,074% of total token deployed) |
| Total Revenue | $791.646.275 | $31.380.000 |
| Total Token Above $1M Market Cap | 1.092 | 45 |
| Revenue & Reward Distribution Mechanism | – Buyback of $PUMP tokens (percentage not disclosed) – 0.5 SOL for token creators whose tokens graduate – 0.05% of every transaction in SOL for token creators – Community takeover fee | – 1% of revenue allocated for buybacks of top tokens on letsBONK – 50% for buy/burn $BONK – 15% for $BONKsol staking – 7.67% for $GP reserve – 7.67% for hiring/growth – 7.67% for development/integration – 4% for SBR – 4% for marketing – 4% for BonkRewards – 10% for token creators from LP fees generated by their tokens – Token creators also receive 10% of SOL accumulated in the bonding curve (distributed every 2 weeks) |
| DEX / Liquidity Pool | PumpSwap | Raydium |
| Transaction Fee | 1% | 1% + 0,25% Raydium fee |
| Graduated Market Cap | ± $79.000 | ± $79.000 |
| Additional Features | – Live streaming – Advanced – Customer Service – Chat | – Advanced – Tech Launch |
| Advantages | – Modern user interface – Comprehensive advanced features: Bubble Maps, Holders, Top Traders – Token filters for specific searches – Displays many trending tokens in real time | – Partial revenue allocation to support top tokens on the platform (community-centric) – Simple and user-friendly interface – Actively innovating through programs such as hackathons |
| Disadvantages | – Reward model is more focused on token creators | – Filter tools are very limited – Advanced features are considered less valuable compared to the standard version |
List of Other Solana Launchpads
Unlike other token launchpads that are web-based, BAGS and Believe are only available on Android and iOS, indicating their focus on delivering a mobile app-based user experience.
BAGS
BAGS is an app-based token launchpad with a unique token creation mechanism. The platform leverages X as its medium, where the token creation format simply involves mentioning the account @launchonbags, specifying the ticker, and attaching an image before posting it. Once live, the token can be immediately traded through the BAGS app as well as across various Solana platforms such as Jupiter, Phantom, Axiom, Photon, and Bonkbot.
BAGS became the first token launchpad to utilize the Meteora DAMM V2 pool. Through this mechanism, token creators can directly earn royalties in SOL without needing to sell the tokens they created or withdraw LP. In addition, BAGS grants token creators a 2% royalty from every token transaction.
Key Features:
- Buy and sell tokens
- Fair-launch mechanism
- Instant token creation via tweet
- Multiple deposit options: Apple Pay, MoonPay, Coinbase, or Phantom
- Feed Filter: customize asset display based on minimum and maximum market cap
- Group Chat: active discussion space within the BAGS app
Believe
Believe is a mobile-based token launchpad focused on developing the Internet Capital Market. Unlike most other launchpads that primarily facilitate meme-themed tokens, the majority of tokens launched on Believe are directly tied to a product or specific utility.
Believe offers developers two options for creating tokens: first, through a formatted tweet on platform X, similar to the BAGS mechanism; and second, directly via its official mobile application.
Transaction fees on Believe are relatively higher compared to most other launchpads, at 2% per user transaction.
Believe has committed $1 million through the Believe Builders Fund to support builders. In addition, they have allocated $5 million in credits via the Believe Perks program, which can be used by builders to access various premium software tools. This initiative is designed to accelerate product development without requiring builders to incur additional costs.
Key Features:
- Buy and sell tokens.
- Fair launch.
- Instant token creation via tweet or app.
- Multiple deposit options: Apple Pay, Debit, Coinbase Pay, or manual SOL transfer.
- Explore: token discovery by category.
Metric Comparison: BAGS vs Believe
Based on the last 7 days of data from Blockworks Research, BAGS and Believe show interesting trends within the Solana launchpad ecosystem.
BAGS recorded approximately $2,373,438 in revenue, with 31,787 tokens launched and 340 tokens successfully graduated. This indicates that BAGS not only operates at a large scale but also maintains a relatively solid graduation success rate.
Meanwhile, Believe generated $91,096 in revenue during the same period, launching 2,516 tokens, but only 4 tokens managed to graduate.
From this data, BAGS clearly outperforms in both the number of tokens launched and those that reached graduation, while Believe still appears to be focused on building out its ecosystem.
The Future of the Solana Launchpad Ecosystem
The launchpad ecosystem on Solana has played a major role in driving network growth, but it has also fueled the stigma of Solana being a “meme coin network” due to the dominance of meme coins. In the past, before token creation became this simple, money flow was more concentrated on specific coins or tokens, which often led to massive rallies like those seen in 2021.
Today, with thousands of new tokens being launched daily, money flow is far more fragmented, making large-scale rallies harder to achieve, except for tokens with strong communities and clear utility. While this accessibility creates new opportunities, it also brings risks such as potential rug pulls, as token creators often retain significant control over supply.
Looking ahead, competition among launchpads is expected to shift away from merely chasing transaction volume and revenue, toward building flywheels that are better aligned with communities and creators, while also delivering more engaging user experiences.
Conclusion
Throughout 2025, the Solana launchpad race was led by pump.fun, which focused on empowering token creators with promotional features such as livestreaming and creator incentives. Meanwhile, letsBONK placed greater emphasis on community, supporting top-performing tokens by allocating a portion of its revenue for buybacks.
The emergence of BAGS with its innovative token launch mechanism via X and integration of Meteora DAMM V2 that provides SOL royalties to creatorsand Believe, which aims to build an Internet Capital Market while targeting builders, added further dynamics to the competition.
Disclaimer: All articles from Pintu Academy are intended for educational purposes only and do not constitute financial advice.
References
- Ollie, “Launchpad wars”, Blocmates, accessed on August 13, 2025.
- DWF “Comparative Analysis of Emerging Solana Launchpads”, DWF Labs, accessed on August 13, 2025.