Scam In Demand: Pump and Dump Projects Get Platformed
As Pump.fun's novel idea to disseminate highly speculative tokens was just getting started, the service has found itself with competition.
Crypto data platform DEX Screener launched a new meme coin launchpad called Moonshot, which is already flooded with almost 200,000 'creative community' tokens. The Moonshot platform is basically a copy of Pump.fun, a controversial 'pump and dump' project incubator launched at the beginning of this year.
Both platforms allow a simple and rapid token launch without a presale and team allocation on Solana. The deployment cost is around 0.02 SOL ($3) plus an initial buy. The token customization level is extremely simple: name, ticker, description, and image.
As a coin is launched, all liquidity is locked by burning the liquidity pool tokens. The price is governed by an automatic smart contract, where a new buyer gets the token at a higher price than the previous one, thus pumping the price and rewarding early investors. Selling goes vice versa. Thus, the more followers the project 'founders' can bring to the platform, the higher the price.
If a project manages to get its token to a milestone of around $69,000, the platforms automatically transfer the token to the next level, an automated market maker platform, Raydium. Some tokens are burned for a deflationary boost, effectively completing the launch. So far, only 59 projects out of 200,000 on Moonshot managed to get their liquidity pool on Raydium.
DEX Screener specifically outlines that Moonshot ensures all smart contracts are fully audited but provides no further details. Multiple users raised the question in the support chat, but no clear answer was given.
In the first days after launch, Moonshot indisputably out-paced Pump.fun by the number of coins created daily (75k compared to 9k on June 24), but by now, the numbers have started to align (17k compared to 3k). The daily revenues generated by Pump.fun from fees are 700% higher, apparently due to higher transaction amount and volume.
Other popular token generators include PrintDex, SmartContracts Tools, Degen Fund, and others. The primitive token-maker tools are mainly SOL-oriented due to the network's persistent meme-coin frenzy. Pump.fun has made it easy and cheap for anyone to make a meme-coin, resulting in a massive influx of creators, traders, and those who simply want to give it a try.
After the Moonshot launch, SOL price started climbing up and grew by 12% within the next day. The gas fees are cheap on the network, which is a fertile ground for ‘joke’ projects with limited budgets. The community reaction to the trend differs. While some say that Solana has turned into a joke, others insist “the shittiest of shit belongs on the best tech.”
Celebrities like Iggy Azalea and Jason Derulo, who recently joined the Solana meme tribe, are promoting their own meme-coins on Solana (a worrisome trend), resulting in a large onboarding of normies into crypto.
Thousands of new shitcoins are generated on a daily basis, mainly doomed to disappear in a couple of days or even hours. Still, those who managed to benefit from the hype are now acting as ‘grown-up’ real coins, exploring utility and entering partnerships that could change their position and change the community attitude. As long as the hope to join their ranks with no effort persists, the shitcoin launch platforms will remain popular among those with a gambling nature.
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