Unlock of 20%, $125 million looming, can PUMP withstand the pressure?
- Core Thesis: The Pump.fun protocol generates a monthly revenue of up to $28.4 million. However, facing the immense sell pressure from the initial unlock of 82.5 billion tokens (worth approximately $125 million) by the team and investors, combined with a significantly reduced buyback scale, the PUMP token faces a severe short-term test. Nevertheless, its high revenue and low valuation characteristics make it a relatively scarce asset in the bear market.
- Key Elements:
- Pump.fun generated $28.4 million in revenue over the past 30 days, second only to Hyperliquid. It has already launched over 12 million tokens, with cumulative revenue reaching approximately $1.05 billion.
- The first unlock in July will release 82.5 billion PUMP tokens (8.25% of total supply), valued at approximately $125 million, far exceeding the $28 million trading volume over the past 24 hours.
- Although 129 billion tokens were burned in April, those tokens were already locked through buybacks and do not represent new buying pressure, thus failing to offset the newly added potential selling pressure.
- The team and investors collectively hold 330 billion tokens, with another 247.5 billion yet to be unlocked. Additionally, the release schedule for 240 billion community tokens remains unclear, creating long-term supply uncertainty.
- Pump.fun's buyback ratio has dropped from 100% to 50%. The buyback amount in June was only $9.2 million, down over 80% from its peak, making it insufficient to absorb the current selling pressure.
- PUMP's market cap stands at approximately $610 million, far below Hyperliquid (HYPE market cap ~$15 billion), which has a similar monthly revenue, highlighting its high-revenue, low-valuation profile.
Original by Odaily (@OdailyChina)
Author: Asher (@Asher_ 0210)
Even though the Meme market has significantly cooled from its peak, Pump.fun remains one of the most profitable protocols in Web3. According to DefiLlama data, over the past 30 days, Pump.fun generated $28.4 million in protocol revenue, surpassing Polymarket ($22.12 million monthly revenue) and trailing only Hyperliquid ($43.93 million monthly revenue).
Web3 Protocol Monthly Revenue Rankings
Someone issues a token, it collects fees; someone trades, it collects fees; from a Meme coin’s birth to its collapse to zero, it skims a fee from every single buy and sell. Since launching over two years ago, Pump.fun has facilitated the issuance of over 12 million tokens, with cumulative platform revenue reaching approximately $1.05 billion, briefly becoming the first application on Solana to surpass $1 billion in revenue.
Pump.fun uses a portion of its revenue to buy back and burn PUMP, converting the platform's earnings into buy pressure for the token. But at 10 PM last night, this value cycle faced its biggest test. PUMP unlocked team and investor tokens for the first time, totaling 82.5 billion tokens, representing 8.25% of the total supply and 20.23% of the pre-unlock circulating supply, valued at approximately $125 million.
In comparison, PUMP's trading volume over the past 24 hours was only $28 million. So, will this potential selling pressure of $125 million cause PUMP's price to cliff-dive? How much can the platform's buyback orders absorb? Is PUMP still worth buying?
April Saw the Burn of 129 Billion PUMP, So Why Can't It Withstand the Unlock Pressure?
On April 29 this year, Pump.fun burned 129 billion PUMP in a single event, accounting for 12.9% of the maximum supply, making it the largest burn in PUMP's history.
Quantitatively, the 129 billion burned is even more than the 82.5 billion being unlocked this time, but the two cannot be directly offset. The vast majority of the burned PUMP had already been repurchased by the platform and held in specific wallets, meaning it wasn't freely circulating in the market. The concentrated burn merely removed these tokens permanently and did not generate an additional 129 billion in buy pressure on that day in April.
This unlock is the complete opposite. The 82.5 billion tokens held by the team and investors, previously untradeable, gained the potential to enter the market starting last night. April reduced the book total supply; July increased the potential sellable supply.
Moreover, 82.5 billion is just the first tranche. The team and investors collectively hold 330 billion PUMP, with only a quarter unlocked this time, leaving another 247.5 billion still locked. Notably, there are also 240 billion community tokens with no announced release schedule.
PUMP Token Allocation Chart
Combined, these two tranches total 487.5 billion tokens, equivalent to 1.2 times the pre-unlock circulating supply. The market not only needs to digest the immediate 82.5 billion but also faces the long-term uncertainty of subsequent supply.
As Unlocks Open the Floodgates, Buybacks Are Ebbing
Pump.fun's most consistent source of buy pressure in the past came from its token buyback program.
After the buyback program launched in July 2025, Pump.fun initially allocated 100% of its net protocol fees to purchase PUMP. In September last year, the monthly buyback amount peaked at $55.3 million, even exceeding that month's protocol revenue of $42.8 million.
However, this April, Pump.fun announced it would reduce the buyback allocation from 100% to 50%, diverting the other half to company operations for hiring, marketing, and acquisitions. By June this year, PUMP's monthly buyback amount had fallen to just $9.2 million, shrinking by over 80% from its peak.
PUMP Revenue vs. Token Buyback Comparison Chart
Looking at the semi-annual timeframe, the gap is even more pronounced. In the second half of 2025, Pump.fun spent approximately $217 million on PUMP buybacks; in the first half of 2026, it only spent $72.2 million, a 67% decline, while protocol revenue fell by only 18% over the same period.
Pump.fun remains highly profitable, but the funds actually flowing back into PUMP have significantly diminished. Based on the $9.2 million buyback scale in June, if just about 7% of the newly unlocked tokens were sold, it would be enough to offset an entire month of the platform's buyback.
The Best of a Bad Lot: PUMP Remains a Scarce Asset in a Bear Market
While selling pressure is evident, looking at the broader market, platforms that can consistently generate high revenue are rare.
Hyperliquid, which earns more than Pump.fun, generated about $43.93 million in protocol revenue over the past 30 days, but HYPE's current market cap is nearly $15 billion, over 20 times that of PUMP. Polymarket generated about $22.12 million in revenue over the past 30 days and has yet to issue a token, though its previously rumored funding valuation has already reached $15 billion. Even if it launches a token in the future, the valuation will likely be anything but cheap.
In contrast, Pump.fun generated $28.4 million in revenue over the past 30 days, yet PUMP's market cap is only around $610 million. It faces unlock pressure, and buybacks are shrinking, but at least the platform's revenue is real, its business model is stable, and the token has already fallen to relatively low valuations.
More importantly, Pump.fun does not rely on any single breakout Meme coin. As long as the market continues to issue and trade tokens, the platform will keep collecting fees. Betting on PUMP is essentially not a bet on the next Meme, but a bet that the Meme market will repeatedly create hotspots, whether in a bull or bear market, and that Pump.fun can maintain its stronghold on this traffic gateway.
Choosing assets for regular investment in a bear market isn't about finding projects with zero issues, but rather prioritizing protocols, among a sea of risks, that still have users, still generate revenue, and still have the capacity for buybacks. From this perspective, PUMP is not perfect, but it remains one of the few high-revenue platform tokens whose valuation hasn't been priced to the moon.
The 82.5 billion unlock tests short-term absorption capacity, but it is Pump.fun's revenue that truly determines how far PUMP can go. As long as this Meme machine keeps generating profits, PUMP may not follow the script of "unlock equals zero." The current moment might actually be a decent opportunity for long-term dollar-cost averaging.
