Unlocking 20%, $125 Million Pressure: Can PUMP Withstand It?

Original Title: "Unlocking 20%, $125 Million Pressure: Can PUMP Withstand It?"
Original Author: Asher, Odaily Planet Daily

Even though the Meme market has significantly cooled compared to its peak, Pump.fun remains one of the most profitable protocols in Web 3. According to DefiLIama data, in the past 30 days, Pump.fun's protocol revenue reached $28.4 million, surpassing Polymarket (monthly revenue of $22.12 million) and only trailing Hyperliquid (monthly revenue of $43.93 million).

Monthly Revenue Ranking of Web 3 Protocols

Some issue tokens, and it collects fees; some trade, and it collects fees; a Meme coin can extract transaction fees from every buy and sell from its birth to its demise. Since its launch over two years ago, Pump.fun has issued over 12 million tokens, with total platform revenue around $1.05 billion, becoming the first application on Solana to surpass $1 billion in revenue.

Pump.fun uses part of its revenue to buy back and burn PUMP, converting the money earned by the platform into token buy orders. However, last night at 10 PM, this value cycle faced its biggest test. PUMP unlocked team and investor tokens for the first time, totaling 82.5 billion tokens, accounting for 8.25% of the total supply, equivalent to 20.23% of the circulating supply before unlocking, valued at approximately $125 million.

In contrast, PUMP's trading volume in the past 24 hours was only $28 million. So, will this potential selling pressure of $125 million cause PUMP's price to plummet? How much can the platform's buyback absorb? Is PUMP still worth buying?

Why Did the 129 Billion PUMP Burn in April Not Stop the Unlocking Pressure?

On April 29 this year, Pump.fun burned 129 billion PUMP tokens at once, accounting for 12.9% of the maximum supply, marking the largest burn in PUMP's history.

In terms of quantity, the 129 billion burned is even more than the 82.5 billion unlocked this time, but the two cannot directly offset each other. Most of the burned PUMP had already been repurchased by the platform and stored in specific wallets, meaning they were not freely circulating in the market. The concentrated burn simply removed these tokens entirely and did not create an additional buy order of 129 billion on the day of the burn.

The current unlocking is completely opposite; the 82.5 billion tokens that were originally non-tradable team and investor chips started flowing into the secondary market last night. The reduction in April was in the total supply on paper, while the increase in July is in the potential sellable chips.

Moreover, 82.5 billion is just the first batch. The team and investors collectively hold 330 billion PUMP, and this time only one-quarter has been unlocked, with 247.5 billion still locked. It is worth mentioning that there are also 240 billion community tokens without a clear release timeline.

PUMP Token Distribution Chart

The two parts total 487.5 billion, equivalent to 1.2 times the circulating supply before unlocking. The market not only has to digest the current 82.5 billion but also faces long-term uncertainty regarding future supply.

When Unlocking Begins, Buybacks Are Retreating

The most stable source of buying for Pump.fun in the past has come from the platform's token buybacks.

After the buyback started in July 2025, Pump.fun once allocated 100% of its net protocol fees to purchase PUMP. In September last year, the monthly buyback amount surged to $55.3 million, even exceeding the protocol revenue of $42.8 million for that month.

However, in April this year, Pump.fun announced it would reduce the buyback ratio from 100% to 50%, with the other half of the funds allocated to the company for hiring, marketing, and acquisitions. By June this year, the monthly buyback amount for PUMP had dropped to only $9.2 million, shrinking over 80% from its peak.

Comparison of PUMP Revenue and Token Buybacks

Looking at it over six months, the gap is even more pronounced. In the second half of 2025, Pump.fun invested about $217 million to buy back PUMP; in the first half of 2026, it only invested $72.2 million, a decrease of 67%, while the protocol revenue only decreased by 18% during the same period.

Pump.fun is still very profitable, but the actual funds flowing to PUMP have decreased significantly. Based on the June buyback scale of $9.2 million, if the unlocked tokens are sold at about 7%, it would be enough to offset a month's buyback for the platform.

A Tall Order Among Dwarfs, PUMP Remains a Scarce Target in a Bear Market

The selling pressure is evident, but when viewed in the context of the entire market, there are not many platforms that can continuously generate high income.

Hyperliquid, which has higher revenue than Pump.fun, generated approximately $43.93 million in protocol revenue over the past 30 days, but HYPE's current market cap is close to $15 billion, more than 20 times that of PUMP. Polymarket's revenue over the past 30 days was about $22.12 million, and it has not yet issued tokens; the company's previously reported financing valuation has already reached $15 billion. Even if it issues tokens in the future, the valuation is unlikely to be cheap.

In contrast, Pump.fun's revenue reached $28.4 million in the past 30 days, yet PUMP's market cap is only about $610 million. It faces unlocking pressure and shrinking buybacks, but at least the platform's revenue is real, the business model is stable, and the token has already dropped to a relatively low valuation.

More importantly, Pump.fun does not rely on any single hot Meme coin; as long as the market continues to issue and trade coins, the platform can continuously collect transaction fees. Betting on PUMP is essentially not about gambling on the next Meme but about betting that whether in a bear or bull market, the Meme market will continue to create hotspots, and that Pump.fun can maintain this traffic entry.

Choosing investment targets in a bear market is not about finding projects without issues but prioritizing those that still have users, are still making money, and still have the capacity to buy back. From this perspective, PUMP may not be perfect, but it remains one of the few high-income platform tokens whose valuation has not been pushed to the sky.

The unlocking of 82.5 billion tokens tests short-term absorption capacity, while Pump.fun's revenue determines how far PUMP can go. As long as this Meme machine continues to make money, PUMP may not necessarily follow the script of "unlocking equals zero"; rather, it could be a good time for long-term investment now.

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