Memecoins are a hard place to hold tokens and a good place to run a platform. New data in CryptoSlate's reporting shows both sides of that picture at once.
đ The news
Pump.fun earned about $18.6 million in protocol revenue over the seven days to October 7, per DefiLlama figures cited by CryptoSlate. Over 30 days, traders paid about $184.5 million in fees, and the protocol kept roughly $60.7 million.
At the same time, a Talos study found that 81% of the memecoins it tracked had fallen at least 90% from their highs.
đ The numbers
âą About $27.3 million worth of $PUMP was bought back and burned over 30 days
âą In the Talos sample, the median token peaked about 17 days after trading began
âą Only five of 151 coins stayed above their first-day price
âą Pump's co-founder said over 140,000 users shared about $4.46 million in rewards and creator fees in one recent day
đ Why it matters
âą The platform earns from activity, not from any single coin surviving
âą Holders of individual memecoins depend on new buyers coming back to that exact token
âą Buybacks tie part of the revenue to the PUMP token, which is why it trades differently from the coins launched on it
âïž Bull vs bear case
Bull: as long as people keep launching and trading, fees keep flowing and buybacks keep running.
Bear: activity is cyclical. Today PUMP is down about 6% near $0.0056, per CoinGecko, and a slowdown in launches would hit revenue directly.
đ What to watch next
âą Weekly fee totals as the market cools
âą Whether buybacks continue at the same pace
âą New competitors for memecoin launches
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đĄ My take: My view is that this is the classic marketplace story. The house can do well even when most players lose, but the house still needs players.
đŹ Is it smarter to hold the platform or the coins launched on it?