Written by: White55, Mars Finance

A "Meme Casino" with income fluctuations of a hundred times has raised $600 million at a $4 billion valuation, with VCs and retail investors buying in at the same price— is this financial innovation, or the most glamorous harvesting script in crypto history?

In the early hours of today, a magical realism drama unfolded on the cryptocurrency exchange Gate: the official website suddenly launched a countdown page for the public sale of the Pump.fun token PUMP, clearly stating that it would start issuing 15 billion tokens (15% of the total supply) on July 12, priced at 0.04 USDT, aiming to raise a whopping $600 million within 72 hours. The page's lifespan was shorter than that of a Meme coin, deleted at lightning speed akin to the platform's swift destruction of retail wallets.

This was not an accidental leak, but a meticulously planned "technical trailer" by crypto capital.

After all, when Pump.fun, a "casino" with an annual income of $700 million, suddenly seeks to raise $600 million at a $4 billion valuation, some drama must be created.

This capital game, packaged as a fair public sale, is essentially the leftovers from a VC banquet repackaged as "community benefits." Meanwhile, retail investors, holding glow sticks proclaiming "participate in history," remain blissfully unaware that they are purchasing a VIP ticket to a meat grinder.

1. Casino Economics: From SOL Printing Machine to Retail Investor Grinder

Let's rewind to January 2024, when three twenty-somethings created Pump.fun. Tired of being victims of Meme coin scams, they decided to open their own casino.

Zero-threshold token issuance + joint curve harvesting—this combination instantly ignited the crypto world: users can create tokens for free, while the platform earns effortlessly from a 5% trading fee; once a token's market cap exceeds $100,000, it automatically lists on the Raydium exchange, completing a seamless transition from the gambling table to the slaughterhouse.

Data bears witness to this absurd carnival:

• In just a year and a half, 5.7 million tokens were issued, accounting for 71% of the daily token issuance on the Solana chain.
• On January 2, 2025, single-day revenue hit $14 million, comparable to a printing machine's output.
• By March 9, 2025, revenue plummeted to $110,000, a drop of over 99%.

This rollercoaster-like income curve perfectly illustrates what "emotion-driven economy" means—when the market is in FOMO, it is alchemy that turns stone into gold; when hot money retreats, it is more embarrassing than naked swimmers on the beach.

The real dark humor lies in the user data: in May 2025, among 594,000 active wallets, only 3.6% made profits exceeding $500, with over half of the users incurring losses, some reaching the million-dollar level.

This is hardly a decentralized financial revolution; it is clearly Las Vegas casinos moving onto the blockchain, with the house winning in a probability game packaged as a fairy tale of "financial democratization."

2. Valuation Magic: When the Bubble Wears a Tailored Suit

A $4 billion valuation—this number is enough to make traditional financial elites drop their jaws. After all, the stablecoin giant Circle's IPO valuation is only $7.2 billion, while Pump.fun's business is essentially a highly cyclical speculative service.

The platform has its own set of "market cap management" mystical logic:

• Price-to-Sales (P/S) ratio of 5.63: seemingly reasonable compared to DeFi protocols like Uniswap, yet deliberately ignores the essence of Meme income being as fleeting as a candle in the wind.
• Price-to-Earnings (P/E) ratio of 11.4: assuming the token can take half of the income, but the white paper has yet to clarify the dividend mechanism.
• FDV/Revenue ratio of 64: far exceeding real cash flow-generating protocols like Raydium and PancakeSwap.

Even more ingenious is the design where VCs and retail investors buy in at the same price. The private round raised $200 million, and the public round $800 million, all executed at a unified $5 billion valuation.

Behind the facade of fairness lies the anxiety of early investors desperately seeking an exit—after all, the platform has cumulatively sold $182 million worth of SOL for stablecoins, a liquidity extraction operation comparable to a crypto version of the Three Gorges Dam.

When researchers criticize "the valuation of MEME launch platforms surpassing DeFi blue chips as a signal of the industry's value collapse," KOLs shout in support of the $4 billion valuation benchmarked against Hyperliquid.

They conveniently forget: Hyperliquid is a derivatives protocol, while Pump.fun's real competitor is Bonk, with a market cap of $190 million—this is akin to labeling a vegetable market's electronic scale as a gold shop's balance and then selling potatoes by the gram.

3. Financing Maze: $600 Million for a New Sickle?

Faced with the soul-searching question of "financing purposes," Pump.fun's blueprint is filled with performative irony:

The founder once claimed to build "an investable social platform" to compete with Instagram and TikTok. Translated into plain language: upgrade Pump.fun from a casino to a casino + influencer live-streaming complex, as real dealers online issuing tokens can harvest another round of metaverse retail investors.

The reality of technological upgrades is even more darkly humorous:

• Launching a self-built AMM (Automated Market Maker): addressing the pain point of "the gambling table isn't slippery enough, and retail investors run too fast."
• Reviving the live-streaming feature: previously shut down due to users performing dangerous acts like "toilet self-immolation" while trading tokens.
• Developing anti-fraud tools: despite attackers still impersonating Solana-pumpfun-bot on GitHub to steal wallets.

Ironically, while the platform claims to build a "Meme ecosystem closed loop," competitor Bonk.fun has already snatched market share with its community governance model. After all, in the crypto world, the subtext of "representing the community" is "harvest a bit more gently," while Pump.fun's VC sickle is already glaringly sharp.

4. Crypto Apocalypse: When the Casino Becomes the Highest Valued Company

Pump.fun's capital feast reflects the sharpest value rift in the crypto world:

• The attention economy faction shouts "traffic equals value," packaging FOMO as a new paradigm.
• Fundamentalists denounce this as an "industry innovation disaster," implying that capital is murdering the ideals of blockchain technology.

A deeper metaphor lies in the data: in 2024, the total market cap of Meme coins evaporated by $40 billion, while Pump.fun seeks to erect a $4 billion valuation monument on the ruins. This resembles the magical scene during the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, where Goldman Sachs employees counted cash while discussing the "necessity of financial innovation."

When the platform labels 52.5% of users losing money as "community ecology," when daily trading volume shrinks by 60% is beautified as "market sedimentation," and when regulatory warnings (like the UK's FCA ban) are interpreted as "honor medals"—the entire industry is losing its reverence for the essence of value. This carnival, named "financial democratization," will ultimately become a textbook case of collective hysteria.

Conclusion: A Crypto Era "Mountain Slope Sheep"

The big pie becomes a peak, contracts rage

The counterfeit winds along the trapped road

Looking at the coin circle, intentions hesitate

Pumpfun's sickle edge gnaws at the remnants

New coin revelries all turn to soil

Prosperity, retail investors suffer

Decline, retail investors suffer

When Zhang Yanghao wrote "Prosperity, the people suffer; decline, the people suffer" in the 14th century, he could not have imagined that seven hundred years later, blockchain casinos would be reenacting history with smart contracts. The verdict of "Pumpfun's sickle edge gnaws at the remnants, new coin revelries all turn to soil" has already revealed the essence of this capital game.

As Gate's 404 page becomes the best performance art, as VCs' private placement shares await retail investors to take over, as KOLs' rainbow farts drown out rational voices—the ultimate paradox of the crypto world surfaces: the more devout the belief in decentralization, the more efficient the centralized harvesting.

Future historians looking back at the summer of 2025 may record: that year, casino owners were no longer satisfied with just taking a cut; they directly had gamblers raise funds to build new casinos.

Meanwhile, retail investors recite "Prosperity, retail investors suffer; decline, retail investors suffer," while lining up to subscribe to the casino's IPO preferred shares.

Because in this industry, the pain itself has become the most addictive consumption.

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