Pump.fun to give $80 if tokens complete bonding curve — will it stop rugs?

Pump.fun is incentivizing memecoin creators to get their tokens off to a successful launch, but the jury’s out whether it will stop bad actors from rugging their tokens early.

Solana memecoin deployer pump.fun has announced it will now reward users who launch memecoins on their platform around $80 in Solana if their token completes its “bonding curve” and is launched on the Raydium DEX — though it may not do much to stop rug pulls. 

In an Aug. 9 post to X, the team announced that memecoin creators would be paid a 0.5 Solana (SOL) reward if their coin fills its “bonding curve” and is launched on Raydium. It could also be a small incentive to ensure that creators don’t sell their tokens entirely.

It comes as pump.fun also announced it has slashed its fee for launching tokens from $2 to $0. A $2 fee will now be paid by the first buyer of the token, making it free for creators to launch a new coin on the platform.

The new incentive structure comes after Aug. 2 data showed that 98.6% of all tokens launched on pump.fun never completed the bonding curve process and failed to launch on Raydium.

What is the bonding curve?

Pump.fun utilizes a bonding curve model as a way of providing guaranteed liquidity for newly launched tokens once they make it to Raydium, an automated market maker on the Solana blockchain.

The bonding curve model takes a small amount out of each token purchase and allocates it to the curve.

Once a token reaches a $63,000 market cap, the bonding curve is completed, and the token is launched on Raydium with this guaranteed liquidity. In short, this means that the token can never be made fully illiquid, and traders can sell, even if the price falls drastically.

Related: Memecoin launcher pump.fun claims ex-employee behind $1.9M exploit

The model privileges early users, as the number of tokens sent to the bonding curve at a lower valuation is less expensive than for users who buy the token at a dollar figure value.

Will this incentive prevent rug pulls?

While the $80 reward is an incentive for token creators to get their tokens all the way to market, it may not be enough to stop rug pulls on the platform.

Traders who are quick off the mark can still buy early and dump their tokens before the bonding curve is completed — something users claim happens frequently on the platform.

However, even if a token completes its “bonding curve,” it does not mean that it can no longer be rugged. Other large holders of the token can still dump their entire position after launch and drive the price down.

While only a few tokens deployed on pump.fun have reached outsized valuations, the platform has been raking in massive revenues from the 1% fee it charges on all trades that occur on the platform.

On July 29, pump.fun’s daily revenue flipped that of the Ethereum network, posting a staggering $864,000 worth of revenue in 24 hours, while the Ethereum network saw $550,000 in the same time frame.

Pump.fun was launched in January 2024 as an antidote to nefarious insider token launches.

Historically, memecoins have been launched by way of pre-sales and insider buying, where launch teams can conceal the number of tokens they have and unfairly manipulate the market.

Pump.fun ensures that all of the data concerning tokens created on its platform is public and transparent, meaning that anyone can see the number of available tokens and who holds them.