Fart-powered joke tokens suddenly weren’t so funny for crypto traders on Tuesday.
A basket of the largest Pump.fun ecosystem tokens faded from recent highs after Blockworks reported the Solana-based launchpad is pitching a $1 billion token sale that would value the project at roughly $4 billion.
Sources told Blockworks the sale could close within weeks, though details on tokenomics remain scarce.
Read more: Pump.fun Aiming to Raise $1B Via Token Sale at $4B Valuation: Blockworks
Tokens launched on the platform slipped amid the news. Fartcoin (FARTCOIN), the largest Pump-launched token by market capitalization, dropped 7%.
Peanut the Squirrel (PNUT), Moo Deng (MOODENG) and Goatseus Maximus (GOAT) gave back as much as 6%, while Alchemist AI (ALCH) — the big gainer on Monday — flipped red after an early 25% pop. The moves wiped about $150 million in aggregate value, trimming but not erasing the sector’s outsized weekly gains.
A billion-dollar raise means a new Pump token and, potentially, a fresh supply. Even if the deal channels cash back to users later, traders worry about a flood of “farm-and-dump” flows hitting the very memecoins the platform helped create.
Deeper concerns, however, spread across crypto circles on X as developers and traders questioned the need of a mammoth fundraise.
“Why does pump need to raise 1bn tho? how is it gonna invest that for growth if it already has made 675m and hasnt spent that either what are they planning to do with 1bn?,” DeFiLlama founder @0xngmi wrote.
“The Pump guys went through an accelerator, raised a small round, then proceeded to make almost a BILLION in revenue in 1 year and got a 4B valuation to raise another 1B,” said Mert Mumtaz, founder at Helius, “Those are simply insane numbers in an insane amount of time.”
Only three weeks ago Pump.fun tried to sweeten the pot users looking to issue tokens using the platform by handing 50% of PumpSwap fees — or five basis points of every trade — straight to token creators.
At the time, founder Alon Cohen pitched the change as a way to eliminate rinse-and-dump behavior: If developers earn recurring fees, they don’t have to dump their own coin on the community.