The memecoin season is no longer in full swing. The revenues of the Pump.fun launcher are indeed down. And this could have a direct effect on the price of Solana’s SOL, according to some experts.
Pump.fun slows down, memecoins less attractive than before
According to data shared by DefiLlama, Pump.fun’s revenues and volumes are down after reaching record highs. After peaking at $6.7 million at the beginning of the year, revenues were down to $293,000 on Monday:
Img – Revenues generated by Pump.fun have slowed significantly
Pump.fun has been criticized in recent months. Its highly speculative token launch system has led to the fortune of a small number of people, while the majority of cryptocurrencies created end up in limbo.
As a result, the number of memecoins created has fallen significantly, from 70,000 per day at the beginning of the year to less than 5,000 at present.
In addition, the price of PUMP, the token associated with Pump.fun, plummeted a few days ago following the announcement that its airdrop would not take place anytime soon.
A risk for Solana’s SOL?
All of this may pose a risk to Solana’s SOL. The blockchain exploded last year as memecoins sparked a craze. In November 2024, Pump.fun accounted for 62.3% of trading volume on Solana’s DEXs. And beyond the launcher, it’s worth remembering that presidential memecoins (TRUMP and MELANIA) were also launched on this blockchain.
That said, Pump.fun’s slowdown has been accompanied by the arrival of a strong competitor: LetsBonk. And while it hasn’t reached Pump.fun’s records at the beginning of the year, it has largely made up for the latter’s loss of momentum:
However, the price of SOL, which had reached an all-time high of $293 one day after the launch of Donald Trump’s memecoin, is now down to $181, according to data shared by CoinGecko. The decline in SOL’s price therefore seems to be linked to a less intense craze that goes beyond the memecoin platform war.
The challenge for Solana will therefore potentially be to exist beyond memecoins, which generate sometimes excessive but changing interest. According to Geoff Kendrick, an analyst at Standard Chartered Bank, this is not a foregone conclusion:
Solana is in a difficult position in terms of development. It has proven its ability to handle large transaction volumes through memecoin trading, but this sector has probably already passed its peak.”
Although Solana has activities in other sectors, such as FinTech and social media, these are not yet mature enough, according to Geoff Kendrick. They therefore cannot generate the same volume as memecoins. This leads to the conclusion that SOL’s price could underperform ETH for a few years:
We expect Solana to underperform Ethereum over the next two to three years, before catching up in 2028 and 2029.
