Pump.fun is putting power back in the hands of traders who are actually grinding and believing in these coins. So, forget the old days when launchers pocketed easy cash.
Solana powerhouse Pump.fun announced on X that they are letting memecoin creators decide right at launch whether their token really “deserves” those Creator Fees or if the rewards should flow straight back to the traders pumping volume through Cashback Coins.
This tweak hits hard because not every token on Pump.fun needs a team raking in fees without delivering real value. Plenty of these coins blow up purely on community vibes, hype, and trader energy with no roadmap, no dev team, just pure meme magic.
“Now, traders can choose to engage with tokens they feel the most aligned with, ultimately letting the market decide who gets rewarded and where the bar is set,” they said.
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Through Pump.fun’s built-in terminal trading setup, cashback coins pop up on every single trade, rewarding the people keeping the volume alive. It’s a new way to boost engagement and make sure the real drivers, the traders, get a piece of the pie instead of watching it all go to someone who dipped out early.
Pump.fun’s timing feels spot-on too
Onchain data folks at Santiment pointed out last week that the memecoin scene might be hitting a classic bottom, with everyone calling the “end of the meme era.”
That’s usually the signal to perk up, as capitulation often means the contrarian play is loading up.
Pump.fun hasn’t been immune to the broader cooldown. Fees tanked hard: January brought in just $31.8 million (down a massive 75.6% from the monster $148.1 million peak in January 2025), and February’s sitting at around $15.6 million so far. This decline is way off the insane highs where Pump.fun once pulled over $15 million in a single day.
Criticism has piled up too
Dune Analytics data shows most of the millions of wallets interacting with Pump.fun aren’t walking away winners. Only a tiny fraction hit big profits, with under 13,700 turning into millionaires on the platform.
Meanwhile, other platforms are bailing on rewards entirely. Coinbase’s Base killed its Creator Rewards program back on Feb. 10 to zero in on tradable assets instead, after dishing out about $450,000 to creators over seven months.
