Venture capitalists and the Solana community touted the ICO as a showcase for capital formation in the age of internet capital markets.
Memecoin launch platform Pump.fun raised $500 million in an initial coin offering (ICO) on Saturday, which sold out in about 12 minutes.
The PUMP token has a maximum supply of 1 trillion, and 33% of the supply was allocated to the ICO. 24% of the supply was allocated to the ecosystem and future community projects, while 13% was reserved for existing investors, according to the memecoin platform.
Of the 33% ICO allotment, 18% went to institutional investors, and 15% was offered to retail traders. Pump.fun’s ICO may signal the return of the memecoin sector, which experienced a sharp downturn after being one of the highest-performing asset classes in 2024.
The public token sale also portends the resurgence of initial coin offerings, which fizzled out due to regulatory pressure in the United States under the reign of former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman Gary Gensler.
Related: Pump.fun buys Kolscan in first acquisition, eyes gamified trading
Crypto community voices mixed reactions to Pump.fun and token sale
Despite the $500 million raised in the ICO, the crypto community remains divided on the effects of Pump.fun and memecoins in general, with some celebrating the growth of the platform and others arguing that it is a net negative for the space.
“Beyond one of the largest ICOs ever, this will be one of the highest-grossing revenue tokens in crypto,” Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at venture capital firm Dragonfly, said.
Mary Bent, founder of Truth for the Commoner (TFTC), responded to Qureshi and said, “Pump.fun and those supporting it, even if at arm’s length, are Pied Pipers leading Gen Z to ruin.”
Coinbase’s head of product, Conor Grogan, said the “great majority” of tokens launched on memecoin creation platforms like Pump.fun and competitors like LetsBonk are created by automated bots.
“There is one guy responsible for about 18,000 tokens created on PumpFun. It appears they wake up and create, on average, about a dozen tokens an hour until they go to bed, and then do it again every day. They’ve done this for months,” the exec wrote in January.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
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