- Pump.fun is rivaling ETH and it’s now outpacing the DeFi giant in daily fee earnings.
- So far this year, Pump.fun has generated around $294 million in transaction fees, according to data from Token Terminal.
- The reason for this lag in Ethereum’s performance is the L2 protocols that continue to eat into its transaction fees.
Pump.fun has just pulled a surprise move on Ethereum this week. The Solana-based memecoin launchpad has not only challenged Ethereum’s dominance, but it is also outperforming the defi king in daily fee generation. Despite Ethereum’s dominance in the defi space, Pump.fun, a Solana sub-protocol has capitalized on the popularity of memecoins and is now ranking above Ethereum in this very important metric.
Pump.fun’s Impressive Rise
So far this year, Pump.fun has generated around $294 million in transaction fees, according to data from Token Terminal. This is a massive lead on Ethereum, which raked in around $248 million in the same period.
The main driver behind this surge has been memecoins, and as they continue to flourish, so does Pump.fun. Over the months, this launchpad has become the go-to platform for launching these tokens, and thanks to Solana’s lightning-fast speeds, the platform is far more cost-effective for creators and traders. Unlike Ethereum, where gas fees spike costs, swaps and launches on Solana stay cheap. Pump.fun offers a more accessible environment for the crypto market’s degens.
Consistent Outperformance of Ethereum
Pump.fun’s rise to dominance was once viewed as a short-term anomaly. However, this so-called “anomaly” has now grown into a pattern with the launchpad now outpacing Ethereum in daily fee generation for over nine weeks and collecting millions in daily inflows. As of recent data, Pump.fun now earns more than $2.88 million daily, along with around $84 million in daily volume.
The reason for this lag in Ethereum’s performance is the L2 protocols that continue to eat into its transaction fees. Meanwhile, Pump.fun with the help of its built-in decentralized exchange, PumpSwap, continues to send value into the Solana ecosystem. Pump.fun is driving Solana’s surge, funneling memecoin volume to validators and apps like Jupiter and Jito.
PumpSwap now handles roughly 6.8% of all DEX traffic flowing through Solana’s ecosystem. Weekly validator fees tied to the platform have also reached up to $2.7 million so far. Solana’s overall daily fee generation has also averaged over $1.28 million, and Pump.fun, as expected, is a major contributor to that number. Over the last month alone, the platform has seen over 156,000 daily active users, an 18% increase.
Ethereum’s Meme Token Struggles
All of the above makes it surprising that Ethereum was once the original home of memecoin culture. The network has lost ground on several fronts, especially with the cost of launching memecoins on Ethereum being relatively high compared to Solana. While the rise of L2s like Base has somewhat reduced this pressure, Solana still controls an insane 94.5% of total meme token trading volumes.
It even has over $10B in monthly swaps compared to ETH’s modest $360M. Ethereum still holds an advantage when it comes to serious DeFi, NFT projects, and whale transactions. However, it is clearly no longer the king of the memecoin space.
