The Casino Social Media PlatformThat Wants to ‘Kill' Facebook and TikTok

Gizmodo

20 hours ago

Pump.fun, a viral crypto launchpad built on Solana, says it wants to 'kill Facebook, TikTok, and Twitch.' If that sounds like meme-fueled madness, it might be, but it also just pulled off one of the most astonishing fundraising feats in recent memory, raking in an eye watering $600 million in 12 minutes through a public token sale. That's a number even Meta would envy.
The July 12 offering marked the debut of $PUMP, the platform's official token. Pump.fun offered 15% of its 1 trillion token supply to the public at $0.004 per token across crypto exchanges like Kraken, KuCoin, and Bitget. The sale was supposed to run for three days. It sold out in 12 minutes.
Launched in January 2024, Pump.fun lets anyone create and trade tokens in seconds. Think of these tokens as unique digital assets, almost like custom digital money or shares in a very niche online community. Many of these are 'memecoins,' cryptocurrencies that gain value primarily from internet hype and community buzz rather than traditional business models. Pump.fun called itself a 'decentralized social casino' where memes and market speculation collide. So far, it has launched more than 11 million tokens and generated over $750 million in protocol revenue, making it one of the fastest-growing crypto projects ever.
Think of it like Reddit meets Robinhood meets a Vegas slot machine. Users create tokens, hype them up, and hope the internet catches on. Creators get attention. Traders get volatility. Everyone chases the next pump.
Now, with $PUMP, the company wants to take things even further.
but that was just the beginning
we're building pump fun to replace existing social platforms with one that gives instead of takes
whether you're a trader, creator, startup founder, or anyone else, pump fun will allow you to tap into a global network of instant money & attention
— pump.fun (@pumpdotfun) July 9, 2025According to the team, the $PUMP token is designed to be the fuel for a new kind of internet, one that rewards creators and users directly, not the platforms. Its roadmap includes incentives like fee rebates, token buybacks, and sharing revenue with token holders. But the core pitch is simple: Replace your social network with a trading protocol.
'We're building Pump.fun to replace existing social platforms with one that gives instead of takes,' the company wrote. 'Whether you're a trader, creator, startup founder, or anyone else, Pump.fun will allow you to tap into a global network of instant money and attention.'
To be clear, Pump.fun is not a social media app in the traditional sense. It's a token casino with a meme strategy. But in 2025, that might be close enough.
Memecoins are no longer a joke. They're a strategy. Platforms like Pump.fun and its competitors (such as LetsBONK) are transforming crypto from a financial product into a cultural product. They're moving fast, breaking things, and skipping the app store entirely. In the Web3 world, tokens are content. Hype is marketing. And attention is capital.
And if you're wondering how it all scales, it already has. The $600 million raise puts Pump.fun in a league of its own. Even major crypto exchanges like Bybit couldn't keep up, citing API overload during the sale. Trading for $PUMP has since launched on Bitget and other crypto exchanges.
If this all sounds too good to be true, regulators seem to agree. The token sale excluded U.S. and U.K. residents due to legal concerns. Meanwhile, competitors like LetsBONK are gaining ground fast. And there's no guarantee that Pump.fun's promised incentives will materialize. But if money is attention and memes are the message, Pump.fun may have already cracked the code for the next generation of digital platforms.
The social internet might not be dead. It might just be tokenized.