Pump.fun has launched its own decentralized exchange (DEX) called PumpSwap, potentially displacing Raydium as the primary trading venue for Solana ( SOL ) memecoins. Starting on March 20, memecoins that successfully bootstrap liquidity, or “bond,” on Pump.fun will migrate directly to PumpSwap, Pump.fun said in an X post. Previously, bonded Pump.fun tokens migrated to Raydium, which emerged as Solana’s most popular DEX largely thanks to memecoins trading activity. According to Pump.fun, PumpSwap “functions similarly to Raydium V4 & Uniswap V2” and is designed “to create the most frictionless environment for trading coins.” “[M]igrations were a major point of friction - they slow a coin’s momentum and introduce needless complexity for new users,” Pump.fun said. “[N]ow, migrations happen instantly and for free.” Raydium’s trading volumes surged in 2024, largely due to memecoins. Source: DeFiLlama Related: Solana shorts spike amid memecoin scandals Heightened competition The launch comes just a few days after Raydium tipped plans to create its own memecoin launchpad — called LaunchLab — to directly compete with Pump.fun. Pump.fun and Raydium’s transition from partners to competitors stands to reshape Solana’s decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem at a time when memecoin trading volumes are down dramatically from January highs. “We welcome competition because users win at the end of the day,” Alon, one of Pump.fun’s co-founders told Cointelegraph on March 20. Other upstart protocols — such as Daos.fun, GoFundMeme and Pumpkin — are also vying for a share of Solana’s memecoin market. PumpSwap plans to adopt one of rival GoFundMeme’s most popular features — revenue sharing with memecoin creators. Soon, “a percentage of protocol revenue will be shared with coin creators,” Pump.fun said. “[I]f it succeeds, millions of dollars will go towards aligning creators with their communities and incentivizing higher quality launches.” Pump.fun’s fee revenues are down sharply from January highs. Source: Dune Analytics Declining memecoin activity On Feb. 27, Cointelegraph reported that successful memecoin launches on Pump.fun were down some 80% from January highs after a series of memecoin-related scandals cooled sentiment among retail traders. As a result, Pump.fun’s average daily fee revenue declined from more than $4 million in January to just over $100,000 as of mid-March, according to data from Dune Analytics, Memecoins drove explosive growth on Solana in 2024, with the chain’s total value locked (TVL) increasing from around $1.4 billion to more than $9 billion that year, according to DefiLlama. Raydium was among the biggest beneficiaries, with daily volumes soaring from around $245 million to more than $2 billion over the course of 2024, DefiLlama data shows . In January, Raydium launched a leveraged perpetual futures trading platform in a bid to challenge incumbent Jupiter, another top Solana DeFi protocol. Magazine: Trump’s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions
