Time.fun Intends to "Flip the Table", Solana Ecosystem Crisis Intensifies

On February 24, after the time tokenization platform Time.fun officially launched on Solana, the Solana official team quickly provided strong support

Author: Nancy, PANews

On February 24, after the time tokenization platform Time.fun officially launched on Solana, the Solana official team quickly provided strong support, and even Solana co-founder Toly mentioned it in a tweet, giving it ample market exposure. This move is not only a strong response to the liquidity drain of Pump.fun but also another growth exploration after the Solana ecosystem was severely impacted by the chaos of celebrity token issuance.

After the scandals involving celebrity tokens like Libra, liquidity on Solana was rapidly withdrawn, and market sentiment remained low. As the traffic engine of the Solana ecosystem in this cycle and an on-chain "printing machine," the protocol is currently struggling to maintain liquidity. Multiple factors, including self-built AMM, rumors of token issuance, ongoing token sell-offs, and uncertainties from regulatory lawsuits, have also caused "discontent" from Solana officials.

In January of this year, Pump.fun's business, despite ongoing growth, unfortunately faced a lawsuit. According to a Bloomberg Law report at the time, Pump.fun was facing a class-action lawsuit, accused of violating U.S. securities laws by marketing and issuing unregistered and highly volatile meme tokens, exposing investors to significant financial risks and collecting nearly $500 million in fees. The lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of New York, with the plaintiffs describing it as "a new evolution of a Ponzi scheme and pump-and-dump." Shortly after, two U.S. law firms, Burwick Law and Wolf Popper, also sued Pump.fun, demanding the platform remove tokens that used their IP, indicating that these tokens used their intellectual property (including their logo and name) without permission.

Worse still, as MEME "cooled off," Pump.fun, as the primary victim of this wave of impact, saw both its graduation rate and trading volume plummet, further affecting the overall activity of the Solana ecosystem.

Data from The Block shows that as of February 24, the graduation rate of Pump.fun tokens transferred to Raydium was only 0.96%, down 54.7% from the historical peak of 2.12%. Meanwhile, Pump.fun's on-chain trading also saw a significant drop, with the average daily trading volume falling from a peak of $3.13 billion in January to $190 million as of February 24, a decline of 93.9%. In terms of protocol fee revenue, DefiLlama data shows that as of February 25, Pump.fun's protocol fee revenue was $2.45 million, a decrease of nearly 84.1% from the historical peak of $15.38 million on January 25.

The significant downturn in business forced Pump.fun to start exploring more products. However, some of these initiatives undoubtedly pose a heavy blow to the still-recovering Solana ecosystem. Earlier this month, crypto KOL Hebi (@hebi555) disclosed on X that Pump.fun plans to adopt a Dutch auction model for public offerings on multiple CEXs (centralized exchanges). Although Pump.fun co-founder Alon denied this rumor and claimed that the news about potential tokens was untrue, this response was questioned by many industry insiders. For instance, Wu said blockchain publicly pointed out that Alon was lying, with several CEX-listed companies confirming Pump.fun's token issuance plans and stating they could publicly share relevant preparatory documents once permission was obtained. If Pump.fun ultimately issues tokens, it will undoubtedly have a huge impact on the Solana market, especially given the already tight liquidity, which will likely lead to even greater capital withdrawal.

Moreover, Pump.fun has earned considerable revenue through trading fees, even ranking among the top 10 global gambling companies in 2024 with an annual revenue of $1 billion. According to Onchain Lens monitoring, Pump.fun has accumulated approximately 2.99 million SOL, currently valued at about $431 million, and its ongoing cash-out behavior has also put significant selling pressure on the SOL token.

What’s more concerning is that Pump.fun recently intends to "flip the table." On February 24, market rumors suggested that Pump.fun is internally testing a self-developed AMM (automated market maker) liquidity pool, with the community speculating that it may launch its own Swap platform to replace third-party suppliers like Raydium to extract more trading fees, a move widely regarded by the community as overly greedy. If this news is true, it would undoubtedly deal a heavy blow to DEXs on Solana, as Raydium and Jupiter have carried a significant amount of liquidity from Pump.fun, and these DEXs are also the liquidity hubs of the Solana ecosystem. To make matters worse, platforms like Raydium and Jupiter have recently also been implicated in the Libra