Pump.fun Accused of Timing Layoffs to Deny Staff Million-Dollar Token Payouts
Pump.fun, a Solana-based meme coin launchpad, is facing allegations that it fired more than 40 employees in two waves to prevent them from receiving PUMP token grants worth over $1 million. The layoffs occurred in early April and mid-July 2026, just before the employee vesting cliff.
According to an anonymous whistleblower account on X, internal termination emails show that Pump.fun deliberately scheduled these layoffs to occur just before workers qualified for their first PUMP allocations.
The report claims that employees signed token grant agreements in mid-June 2025, with a one-year vesting cliff set for June 2026. However, the affected staff never reached this milestone.
Pump.fun has not publicly responded to the allegations, and its UK entity, Baton Corporation Ltd., is facing regulatory scrutiny.