On July 12, Pump.fun, a “meme-coin factory,” held a $500m ICO for the PUMP token. The sale sold out in 12 minutes, but users on several platforms encountered problems.
the $PUMP public sale has now ended.
we are delighted to reveal that the $PUMP public sale was able to sell out in only 12 minutes.
we would like to thank our entire community for participating!
the $PUMP tokens will now enter the distribution phase 👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/uqhQwRkL4f
— pump.fun (@pumpdotfun) July 12, 2025
According to the ICO website, only $51.5m went through three centralized exchanges (CEX). The bulk—89.7%—was bought on Pump.fun itself.
Exchanges where the sale was available:
- Bitget;
- Kraken ($30m);
- Bybit;
- MEXC;
- Kucoin ($16.5m);
- Gate ($5m).
Participants experienced order-processing delays and failed to receive their PUMP allocations. Kraken CEO Arjun Sethi therefore announced an additional token airdrop for users affected by the technical issue.
“Eligibility for PUMP depends on a confirmed intent to place an order during the sale. No action is required. Distribution will occur automatically and at no cost,” he wrote.
The exchange’s team will compile a list of clients and send email notifications shortly.
Bybit users noted that even buy orders placed in the ninth and tenth seconds after the sale began failed to go through. Bybit apologised for a glitch in processing API requests.
$PUMP Token Sale Concludes Amid Oversubscription; Allocation Results Under Review
The $PUMP token sale has now concluded. Due to an unexpected API delay the offering was oversubscribed, resulting in a portion of users successfully receiving their allocations, while others were…
— Bybit (@Bybit_Official) July 12, 2025
“Due to an unexpected API delay, there was a request overload: some users successfully received allocations, while others did not,” representatives of the exchange said.
They assured that customers affected by the issue will receive full compensation.
PUMP: fallout and figures
The meme-coin sale ranked among the industry’s three largest, with a price of $0.004 and a $4bn valuation, according to Investopedia.
According to Dune, the ICO drew nearly 24,000 participants, of whom only 10,145 were able to acquire the token.
The average investment was $44,209. According to Bubblemaps, more than 75% of all PUMP is concentrated in 843 addresses that bought allocations larger than $100,000. Of these, 179 wallets hold tokens worth $1m.
$500M raised
75% came from under 1,000 people
whale season https://t.co/sXVRNZAgSy
— Bubblemaps (@bubblemaps) July 12, 2025
For now, pre-market trading is available on Hyperliquid, where PUMP has traded above the presale price. At its peak, it reached $0.0072.
Public trading is scheduled to launch on July 15.
Views on the sale’s success were mixed.
“PUMP will receive 25% of trading revenues, so beyond being one of the largest ICOs in history, the token will also become one of the most profitable by gross revenue in the crypto industry,” said Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at venture fund Dragonfly.
Pump.fun’s founder, known as Alon, wrote about a 15% sale worth $600m, while the sale page states 12.5% or $500m.
A trader under the pseudonym Ashcryptoreal reacted to the speed of fundraising with the words:
“Pumpfun closed the investment round. $600m in 12 minutes. People have learned nothing.”
On-chain analyst rezxbt called PUMP’s tokenomics a liquidity-siphoning threat, with 40% of the total supply concentrated in the hands of the project team.
Ahead of the ICO, Pump.fun lost the lead in daily revenue to Letsbonk.