Alon Cohen, co-founder of Pump.fun, said the Solana-based memecoin launchpad is overhauling its creator fee system after concluding that the present model can have distorted incentives.
“Preparer fees need to alter,” Cohen wrote in a Friday post
According to Cohen, the mechanism encouraged the creation of low-risk tokens on the expense of high-risk trading, which he described as “dangerous” since traders are the fundamental source of liquidity and volume on the platform.
Cohen said the initial rollout was promising. Within weeks, recent creators began launching tokens and livestreaming, which he said led to the strongest on-chain conditions of 2025. Pump.fun's engagement curve volume greater than doubled during this era, in response to charts shared alongside his post. However, the rise proved to be short-lived and exposed structural weaknesses.
The binding curve volume of Pump.fun. Source: Alon Cohen
Creator fees encouraged minting of tokens as an alternative of liquidity
While creator fees helped create reputable project tokens with energetic teams, Cohen said they did little to alter the behavior of the typical memecoin deployer. In many cases, fees became a blunt incentive to mint tokens relatively than construct liquid markets.
“The platform has not yet provided an excellent user experience and infrequently requires CTO tasks from users [Community Takeover] Coins, trust other people to satisfy their guarantees, etc.,” he wrote.
In a series of posts on X, Pump.fun outlined the primary phase of changes. The platform introduces creator fee splitting, allowing creators and CTO administrators to separate certain percentages of fees across as much as 10 wallets after launch. Teams also can transfer coin ownership and revoke update permissions.
Cohen said that nobody from the Pump.fun team will accept fees under any circumstances, describing the feature as “for trenchers.” The fees might be claimed by the recipients at any time and don’t expire in the event that they will not be used.
Pump.fun becomes the dominant Solana memecoin launchpad
Pump.fun has change into the leading launchpad for Solana memecoins by combining near-frictionless token creation with a standardized path to liquidity.
The platform briefly lost ground in July as competitor LetsBonk overtook it in volume and revenue, but momentum quickly returned. Pump.fun strengthened its position through aggressive PUMP token buybacks and a revamped creator payout program under Project Ascend. By late summer, trackers again showed that Pump.fun controlled around 75-80% of Solana's memecoin launches.
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