Author: Ryan S. Gladwin; Compiled by: Vernacular Blockchain

Popular launch platform and cultural center Pump.fun launched a token number on Wednesday, down 64.6% from its peak in January. Meanwhile, Token's weekly graduation rate has also dropped to its lowest level since July 2024, according to Dune. The so-called "graduation" means that the Token reaches a certain market value threshold. The previous threshold was $69,000, but it was raised to $100,000 at the end of last year. This silence convinced some traders that Memecoin’s casino was closed and would never reopen again. Loopify (pseudonym), founder of crypto education platform Pluid, and a trader believe that the Memecoin cycle is over. He pointed out that some data show that the Memecoin boom has surpassed the peak of the previous NFT bull market. According to Dune, the most popular NFT marketplace OpenSea has generated $943 million in revenue since its launch in 2017, compared with Pump.fun's revenue has exceeded $574 million since its launch in January 2024. Not to mention the revenue generated by trading robots, market makers and other protocols that are crucial to the Meme currency economy.

When others saw these statistics, they thought it was time to give up Pump.fun as the center of the Memecoin ecosystem. "The era of Pump.fun is over," Solana Bateman, a pseudonym trader and WIFToken deployer, said in an interview with Decrypt. "They never gave back anything, but squeezed too much," he added. "The difference between us and them is that we care about Solana, which is our home. And they care about filling their pockets." This accusation often points to the launch platform, which opponents think is not working hard enough to develop the market, but just selling all the SOLs generated by the platform - although the founders denied that. Bateman said the platform could improve by improving token economics, creating better liquidity pools, or providing more sustainable models, such as adding token unlocks at specific market caps. “I also agree that Pump.fun’s model is far from perfect, and I know the team has been working hard to find ways to improve,” Pump.fun co-founder Alon Cohen said in an interview with Decrypt. “After the establishment of Token, the design space for managing user incentives is very broad, so it is necessary to improve this point.time. However, since day one, Pump.fun has adhered to some principles that I think are still valid to this day. "Cohen said these principles include keeping a low barrier to entry when creating a token while pursuing "simplicity and elegance" because complexity pushes retail investors far away. He also added that he believes Pump.fun's standardized contracts are "a huge positive impact" on the ecosystem because they reduce the risk of developers creating malicious contracts and being abused. How did we get to this point? Memecoin's collapse can be pursued to a large extent Going back to the launch of Donald Trump’s official Memecoin, just a few days before his inauguration in January. The market was filled with fanaticism, speculators announced a new era of Memecoin and cryptocurrencies. The next day, Melania Trump also launched his own token, causing the TRUMPToken to plummet—and MELANIA soon followed closely. Emotions changed rapidly, and traders began to realize where the “scam” lies. According to DEX According to Screener, TRUMPToken has fallen 85% from his all-time high, while MELANIA's decline has reached 94%. These tokens have absorbed the liquidity of Memecoin traders and created a large number of losses. Rennick, founder of hedge fund Stratos In an interview with Decrypt, more large MemecoinTokens surged in the next few months—a major loss to traders. Most notably, LIBRA soared to a market value of $1.17 billion after Argentina President Javier Mile promoted through social media, but plummeted 96% to $40 million in just six hours. Afterwards, widespread insider trading allegations broke out, involving multiple major agreements and influencers , and investigators also found that the publisher of the Memecoin has a connection with the team behind Melania Trump. As the claim that Memecoin is a manipulator continues to ferment, the market's fear of the industry's total corruption has reached an unprecedented high. Bateman believes that this is the "last nail" for Memecoin. "Initially, [Memecoin] looked like a casino game," said co-founder and CEO of analytics company Bubblemaps. Nick Vaiman said in an interview with Decrypt. “But in reality, it’s far worse than that: the game was manipulated from the beginning. "He explained, "You have almost zero chance of winning because the real winner is destined: the insiders who know the inside story in advance, the savvy snipers who enter the field early, and the team behind it. "For some people, this is enough to get them to give up Memecoin and start looking for the real price behind thoseMore stable investment value. VanEck portfolio manager Pranav Kanade said in an interview with Decrypt that he expects funds to flow out of Memecoin to “some niche Altcoin” because they provide more psychological comfort. But not everyone convinced this. “Many people don’t like Altcoin, which has a big vision for traditional venture capital,,” Loopify told Decrypt. “So they are more likely to stick to a single cultural token or simply exit the market until new opportunities arise.” Crypto trader Murad Mahmudov once talked about his Memecoin investment theory, the core of which is to find “sects” and buy the tokens in it. However, according to CoinGecko, any of the tokens on his list has not achieved a rise in the past seven days. In addition, macroeconomic pressure is also driving the overall market downturn. According to TradingView, Bitcoin (BTC) has fallen 17% since the launch of LIBRA, the S&P 500 has fallen 2.7% in the past month, while Trump’s tariffs have exacerbated market instability. "Global liquidity has declined recently, and Memecoin is particularly sensitive to this change," Palley said, predicting that "it looks like liquidity has bottomed out and Memecoin may recover in the next few months." Some traders in the market agree with this view, with the pseudonym Memecoin trader 0xWinged, who believes that the market is overreacting and predicts that Solana will rebound to $170 soon, and market liquidity will also flow back to the Memecoin space. "At the end of the day, human nature is to like gambling. As the subsequent market liquidity rebounds, I believe that funds involved in gambling will increase accordingly." Palley said, adding, "Memecoin will continue to exist."