The Launchpad Wars: Pump.fun, Raydium, and the Future of Solana's Memecoin Economy

Vertical Integration vs. Creator Alignment: Pump.fun and Raydium’s Battle for Solana’s Memecoin Economy

Pump.fun didn’t just ride the memecoin boom, it engineered it. While just 2 of the top 10 memes on Solana by market cap may have originated on the platform ($PNUT and $FARTCOIN), the sheer volume of tokens launched and trading activity they’ve generated has redefined token generation and memecoins at large. 

In just over a year, the Solana-based launchpad has transformed from upstart to kingmaker, becoming one of crypto’s most profitable businesses while redirecting billions in trading flows from Ethereum to Solana. With over $670 million in fees generated since its January 2024 inception, Pump.fun has achieved what few DeFi protocols ever manage: massive, sustained revenue, without token incentives.

While its yearly revenue currently ranks 10th overall in DeFi, Pump’s growth trajectory tells a more compelling story. In the past 30 days alone, it generated $75.15 million in fees, vaulting to 3rd place behind only stablecoin issuers Tether ($555 million) and Circle ($190 million) and earning double the fees of Solana itself ($33.71 million).

But Pump, clearly, isn’t satisfied with dominating just one segment of the market. By launching PumpSwap, their own AMM for trading graduated tokens, they’ve executed a textbook vertical integration play. No longer content to hand off their tokens to Raydium after launch, Pump now controls the entire value chain, potentially doubling their already impressive revenue by capturing both token creation and their post graduation trading.

It’s a bold strategy that could cement Pump’s control over Solana’s memecoin economy. But in reaching for more, they’ve also created an opening for new challengers. 

PumpFun’s Grip on Solana Trading

At this point, Pump.fun isn’t just participating in Solana’s meme economy, it is the meme economy.

In fact, at its peak in November of last year, Pump-related assets (coins launched on Pump.fun) made up nearly 60% of all monthly DEX activity on Solana, meaning that coins launched on Pump.fun generated nearly two-thirds of all trading activity across Solana. Even today, in a much less frothy market, Pump assets are still driving ~40% of monthly DEX transactions.

The dominance is just as clear when looking at volume. Pump-related assets accounted for over 40% of all Solana DEX volume at their height. Even now, they consistently make up about 25% of total DEX volume, a staggering figure for a single launch platform.

And no protocol (outside of maybe Solana itself) has benefited more from Pump’s rise than Raydium.

Because all graduated Pump tokens initially funneled their liquidity into Raydium’s pools, they became a massive source of trading volume and fee generation for Raydium’s AMM. Over the past 90 days, Pump-related assets made up about 40% of all swap volume on Raydium, helping drive a large share of the $900M+ in total fees Raydium generated last year.  This figure, notably, exceeded Pump.fun’s own fees for 2024. 

In other words: Raydium made more total fees than Pump, largely because Pump fed them the flow. Looking