Pump.fun’s Monopoly Returns

On September 10, we re-initiated coverage of PUMP. Our thesis was that Pump.fun’s monopoly-like position across the launchpad and memecoin infrastructure layers, combined with its expanding consumer-facing ecosystem, positioned PUMP as one of our highest-conviction ideas heading into the next bull market. We maintained this view despite significant market-share losses: Pump.fun’s share of fees across Pump.fun, Pons and StonkFun had fallen from 90% to 32% over the two weeks ended September 8.

Since then, Pump.fun has reasserted its dominance. Daily revenue recovered to $1.6M last week, while its share of combined Pump.fun vs StonkFun revenue reached 94%. It has also reclaimed leadership in the memecoin-pairing category pioneered by StonkFun, with its volume share increasing from approximately 12% in September to 88% last week.

This marks the fourth time Pump.fun has successfully defended its market share, with each episode further reinforcing its dominance. Its entrenched position and substantial financial resources enable it to rapidly replicate competitors’ innovations and offer comparable functionality. Importantly, the launchpad layer remains largely infrastructure-based, with most users trading through third-party front ends such as Axiom and Fomo. This limits new entrants’ ability to establish direct user relationships or build durable competitive moats.

The second pillar of our thesis was that a rapidly growing consumer layer could strengthen Pump.fun’s market position by giving it ownership of the end-user relationship and, over time, providing a platform for additional products and monetization. Progress on this front has exceeded our expectations, both in adoption and in the pace of product expansion.

Since our report, the Pump app’s average daily volume has increased by $9.5M, while the app has attracted 571k new wallets. 

It is now approaching Fomo in average daily volume on Solana ($29M versus $32M last week) and has overtaken it in daily traders (72k versus 58k). This growth is particularly notable given the introduction of a 45-basis-point front-end fee on the mobile app, equivalent to approximately $48M in annualized revenue.

Pump.fun has also broadened its product offering. Its perpetual futures integration with Hyperliquid generated $42.9M in volume over its first nine days. It also launched gacha-style packs through Collector Crypt, attracting 7.8k users who spent $15.9M in the first six days; Pump.fun’s share of Collector Crypt’s daily gacha spending peaked at 36%.

Although these consumer initiatives remain small relative to Pump.fun’s core infrastructure business, we view them as important validations of our thesis.

First, as anticipated, Pump.fun has re-established its dominant position in the infrastructure layer. Second, it has demonstrated an ability to leverage its capital resources and infrastructure to compete effectively in the consumer layer, as evidenced by its progress relative to Fomo. Third, its integrations with third-party infrastructure products point toward a broader “everything exchange” strategy.

— Shaunda

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