Pump.fun's Custom Pairs Under Fire: A Copycat with a Flawed Fee Structure
pump.fun, a launchpad on Solana, recently introduced Custom Pairs that allow creators to pair memecoins with tokenized shares of major companies. This feature was already available on Stonk, another launchpad, which has seen significant success since its introduction. The market responded negatively to pump.fun's version, with prices falling by over 12% within hours.
The main difference between the two platforms is how fees are structured. Stonk pays holders of a memecoin for simply holding it, while pump.fun's Cashback model rewards traders for executing transactions. Critics argue that this design incentivizes wash trading and doesn't provide value to holders.
pump.fun has also been criticized for not providing an airdrop to users and relying on paid promotion. The platform earns hundreds of millions in fees from Solana but hasn't passed much of it down to users.