Author: Golem, Odaily
The highly anticipated PUMP token ICO officially opened at 22:00 tonight. Despite negative voices in the market criticizing the pump.fun team and claiming PUMP is overvalued, the truth of "friends FUD, I'll still go all in" remains appealing.
The PUMP token public sale was hot, with 15 billion tokens (15% of total supply) selling out in just 12 minutes. According to Arkham, 189 addresses invested over $1 million in the PUMP chain public sale, with some experiencing platform crashes due to excessive instantaneous traffic.
Additionally, an interesting detail emerged tonight. According to the pump.fun website, this public sale sold 12.5% of tokens, raising $500 million, which differs from the previously announced plan to sell 15% of tokens and raise $600 million. The market speculates this might be due to unsynchronized sale systems across several exchanges, and pump.fun has not yet publicly clarified the discrepancy.
Regardless, tonight's public sale is not the end, but the beginning of a larger market game. According to official regulations, while ICO participants can receive tokens after the public sale, the tokens will initially be non-transferable. Token transfer permissions will be enabled 48-72 hours after the ICO, potentially as early as next Monday's opening.
So, will the opening make traders slap their thighs or drop their jaws? The market circulates two mainstream scenarios:
Panic Selling by Paper Hands, Official Good News Pulling Back Value
The first scenario is that when PUMP tokens open next week, the token price won't surge significantly, causing panic selling by public sale participants. After short-term speculators sell, the official team might release positive news to boost the price, successfully "washing out" retail investors. This scenario has some merit, with MoonRock Capital CEO Simon sharing a similar view, believing PUMP tokens will first drop to $2.5 billion before rising to $20 billion.
The FUD facing Pump.fun's ICO is unprecedented: declining MEME track liquidity, overly high $4 billion valuation, declining daily revenue and user activity, losing platform leadership, lack of actual token value, non-transparent team token unlock plan, previous continuous SOL selling for cash, etc. If the token price doesn't surge after opening, these FUD narratives will be rationalized, solidifying Pump.fun's "industry villain" status. Moreover, with 33% of tokens (worth $1.32 billion) entering circulation, the market might struggle with such massive selling pressure.
The exciting part of this scenario is the latter half, where Pump.fun's official team and market makers will use these FUD points to accumulate tokens and, after successfully "washing out" investors, release pent-up positive news.
According to previous Lookonchain monitoring, Pump.fun hasn't deposited SOL to Kraken for nearly a month since June 10. Their last SOL sale was on June 11, depositing 132,180 SOL into Kraken. This year, they've sold a total of 2,476,697 SOL worth $404.64 million. DeFiLlama shows Pump.fun's 30-day revenue at $31.94 million. They might announce injecting these SOL into the PUMP pool or distributing them as liquidity rewards.
Furthermore, addressing the core FUD about token utility, Pump.fun founder Alon previously stated their vision is to build a Solana-native platform where PUMP tokens will empower creators financially. Future development includes creator revenue sharing, investing in live streaming functionality, and team expansion through strategic hiring and acquisitions.
These developments could provide potential positive signals, indicating Pump.fun's transformation from a MEME launch platform to a token-driven social platform similar to TikTok and Facebook.
These signals might help long-term holders build confidence, buying after panic selling, especially with this week's ETH leading Altcoin market recovery. Investor valuation of Pump.fun might consequently increase.
Opening Surge Squeezing Shorts, Then Continuous Decline
The second scenario, widely considered by the market, is PUMP tokens surging on opening to squeeze shorts, then continuously declining. This stems from significant overseas player interest despite local FUD, and potential pre-market short positions.
The opening surge possibility comes from pre-market contract trading and genuine FOMO. Chinese KOL 0x Sun noted overseas KOLs like zAnsem and Izebel are very optimistic, with some even opening long contracts to ensure participation. VC investments at a $4 billion valuation suggest some price rationality.
He predicted PUMP would open without issues, potentially rising 40-80% before starting to decline, resulting in a satisfactory outcome for all.
Another KOL mentioned overseas players' strong FOMO, willing to trade at a premium. Pre-sale pricing showed a 5% difference between Hyperliquid and Binance.
The final outcome suggests the market will rationally recognize Pump.fun's valuation as unsustainable, especially given the founder's previous "pre-sale is a scam" comments, which have nearly exhausted market trust.
0x Sun shared his own strategy, planning to hedge and potentially short based on market movements.
Which scenario do you find more likely?
