Pump.fun bets on live streams and tokens to create the "Twitch of memecoins" on Solana

Source: PortaldoBitcoin Original Title: Pump.fun bets on live streams and tokens to create the “Twitch of memecoins” on Solana Original Link: At the same time last year, Solana’s memecoin launch platform, Pump.fun, had disabled its live streaming feature after creators flooded the platform with videos of dangerous stunts in an attempt to inflate their tokens’ value.

Now, Pump.fun sees streamers as the future of its platform, with plans to directly challenge other livestreaming competitors. The company posted on X in July: “Our plan is to kill Facebook, TikTok, and Twitch. On Solana.”

This move is being promoted as “capital markets for creators” — the idea that viewers can help fund their favorite creators while having a stake in the future of their content through a crypto token. It’s a stark contrast to the traditional model, which mainly relies on viewer donations with little or no return.

Pump.fun accelerated this vision when it revamped its fee structure in September to direct a larger share of the fees generated from each transaction directly into the pockets of token creators. As a result, some streamers earned tens of thousands of dollars in just a few days as their content went viral.

But the initial momentum soon gave way to reality, as it became clear that creators and traders made more money betting on increasingly crazy stunts. And Pump.fun ended up back at square one, with a model that encourages creators to flirt with controversy. Now, the industry is reflecting on how to change that.

Live streams return

On April 4, Pump.fun launched its updated streaming feature to 5% of its users, with renewed guidelines and a strengthened moderation system. It then gradually expanded the feature to more users, ensuring it wouldn’t spiral out of control like in 2024.

Two months later, crypto influencer Jake “SolJakey” Hillhouse launched Basedd House, a content creator group made up of emerging influencers living together in a fraternity-style house, with weekly episodes and memecoins associated with each character. It was from there that now-established creators gained notoriety, such as the eccentric Iseem and crypto rapper Whish. Pump.fun directly funded the entire project.

Other creators and viral moments also started to emerge in June.

Leland King Fawcette became the second fastest person to visit all 50 US states, according to the Fifty States Club, all while live streaming on Pump.fun. A Ukrainian named Ricken said the words “Pump fun” a million times live. And a man even streamed his son’s birth live and then named him “Solana” — in honor of the crypto network hosting the memecoin machine.

It became clear that Pump.fun had hit the mark with its audience, and that’s when the company began investing in what it now saw as the future of the platform.

Pump.fun invests

Pump.fun started paying people to post clips of top creators on the platform — the opposite of traditional livestreaming platforms, which require creators to find, manage, and pay these “clippers.” Pump.fun co-founder Alon Cohen said this was an attempt to “stimulate social activity,” hoping to encourage greater adoption of native crypto livestreaming.

But it was in September, when Pump.fun revamped its fee model to increase creators’ earnings tenfold, that the streams really exploded. In a single day in September, Pump.fun distributed over $4 million in fees to creators. This meant that streamers, who create their own meme tokens linked to each viral event (or so they hope), no longer needed to sell their own stock of tokens to make good money.

Pump.fun then doubled down on livestreaming. It began sending backpack kits to streamers, helping creators improve their broadcast quality. The platform also hired an unknown number of recruiters, who helped Pump.fun offer contracts to traditional content creators.

Alec Strasmore, former assistant to musician Post Malone, was one of these recruiters. He approached creators from the traditional space who had large audiences but struggled to monetize, introducing them to Pump.fun and assisting with onboarding.

The exact terms of these contracts remain unknown. However, a source familiar with the deals said they included commitments on streaming hours, control over token supply, and were generally short-term — weeks or months, not years. This helped attract a flow of well-known influencers outside the crypto world to the platform.

Chad Tepper, a former member of Jake Paul’s influencer group Team 10 with millions of followers on social media, was one of those who joined Pump.fun. Others, like former professional League of Legends player Michael “BunnyFuFuu” Kurylo, also joined the platform.

Typically, these tokens launched with an immediate price spike as the creator’s audience bought the token. Most of the time, however, that didn’t last — hype eventually faded, and tokens started to decline slowly.

These scenarios resulted in streamers earning large sums in the first days of trading (BunnyFuFuu earned over $130,000 in fees in his first three days), before earnings diminished as trading volume plummeted. (BunnyFuFuu only earned $29,000 in the following three months). The short lifespan not only hurt creators — traders and viewers also started earning less over time.

As a result, many of these streamers and traditional creators stopped streaming on Pump.fun.

“Many of these didn’t work out. Maybe the best way is not to spend a ton of money on Web2 streamers,” Hillhouse said, referring to creators outside the crypto or “Web3” space. “But you end up finding a few that really matter, that proved the concept,” he added, citing Misfits B boxer Dave and TikTok influencer Minikon as positive examples. Both creators’ tokens are more than 90% below their peak shortly after launch.

“From now on, I don’t think Pump.fun should do this again,” Hillhouse said, suggesting any future deals would need to be “more long-term.”

Virality matters

But Pump.fun’s biggest successes this year came from talents created within the platform itself: Hillhouse’s Basedd House, random degens trying to break world records on the site, and the Bagwork boys.

In September, two guys, Chris and Mike, created a token called Bagwork and started live streaming various stunts to “work” the token. The first was relatively mild: invading a baseball game field. Then they went viral by filming themselves stealing fitness influencer Bradley Martyn’s cap and getting slapped for it. The Bagwork token surged 2,000% as a result, earning the duo $49,000 in fees. Just one viral video was enough.

A few days later, the duo leaked unreleased songs from rapper Drake, bringing international recognition to the Bagwork brand — and legal trouble in the form of an apparent cease-and-desist notice. That stunt earned the Bagwork boys $83,000 in fees in just two days.

But the token suffered the same problem as many memecoins before it: when attention, hype, and controversy fade, the price also drops. Bagwork is currently 96% below its all-time high of $53.8 million during the Drake leaks, now at $1.9 million.

Mike from Bagwork called that period “the best days of my life.” He thought he was about to become one of the “biggest and richest” streamers in the world. But as attention waned, he realized there was “definitely a little problem” with Pump.fun streamers “needing crazier content to inflate their tokens.”

Hillhouse agreed that something’s wrong with the current model. He suggested more community activations requiring tokens, like voting on what a creator will do during the live.

This could be decisive for the creator capital markets next year. Will Pump.fun find a way to fix its reliance on sensational viral moments? Or will creator capital markets fade into obscurity, like many memecoin trends before them?