In 2026, can the Meme King Pump.fun still tell a new story?

Despite the uncertainties, Pump remains one of the most resilient consumer applications in this cycle. This article is adapted from an article by Simon, compiled, translated, and written by Deep潮 TechFlow.
(Background: The most profitable applications in the crypto space are starting to slack off, is Pump.fun still salvageable?)
(Additional context: Pump.fun’s $170 million buyback and “chaos mode” still struggle to dominate the Meme market)

The following content is excerpted from Delphi’s upcoming “2026 Application Outlook Report,” focusing on Pump (.) fun — one of the consumer applications we are most interested in next year.

Since we released the initial Pump report (before its funding), many things have changed. Many of our predicted dynamics have been validated, but some areas have fallen short of expectations, disappointing users and investors. However, the core challenges Pump faces remain unchanged.

To realize Pump’s grand vision, the team needs to find a balance between the short-term profit-driven nature of the crypto industry and its long-term platform vision. Notably, once a project launches a token, its operational environment shifts; the token itself becomes an independent product with inherent reflexivity, continuously influencing user expectations, and Pump is no exception.

Since completing funding, the Pump team has increased investment in crypto-native streaming media, but development in this area has not gone as smoothly as we expected, at least not yet reaching an ideal state.

Pump has yet to attract core creators outside the crypto ecosystem, and the CCM metaverse (CCM meta) emerging on the Pump platform has been fleeting. The most notable moment came from the “Bagwork” event, which not only demonstrated the potential of creator-driven tokens but also revealed structural issues hindering this model’s development.

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This explosive phenomenon was led by a group of teenagers who, supported by Pump, carried out a series of hotly debated events: stealing Bradley Martyn’s hat, storming a Dodgers game, rushing onto the Knicks court, and even getting tattoos of Pumpfun and Bagwork.

@onlybagwork’s rise nearly synchronized with Pump.fun’s peak hype in mid-September. At that time, $PUMP 's fully diluted valuation (FDV) reached about $8.5 billion, and Bagwork’s market cap once broke $50 million.

Since then, no creator token has approached this organic momentum or reached a similar valuation peak.

The Knicks incident happened more recently, well after the initial hype, and now Bagwork’s market cap is only slightly above $2 million.

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Bagwork is one of the few cases where Pump’s streaming media experiment has been executed as expected. The Bagwork team earned over 2300 SOL in creator revenue (roughly $300,000 at current prices) through $BAGWORK 's transaction fees.

Notably, all this was achieved without the team selling their holdings. Viral events directly translated into attention, trading volume, and fee income, creating the closest case to a true creator token flywheel effect so far for Pump.

However, aside from Bagwork, Pump still struggles to realize its streaming media vision. Creator tokens have consistently failed to maintain their value. This phenomenon can be traced back to a fundamental issue: tokens are part of the product itself.

Currently, the economic rationale for owning or supporting a certain streamer token remains unclear. Bagwork’s early success quickly faded, and since then, each major streamer token has failed to garner similar attention, ultimately trending toward zero.

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Creators can gain short-term benefits through CCM’s fee structure, but the reputation risk associated with collapsing tokens makes this model unattractive to bigger, more established creators, who could otherwise help the platform attract a broader audience. From a trader’s perspective, these tokens remain zero-sum environments rather than genuine communities.

This is the most critical issue Pump needs to address as it moves into 2026.

Currently, the team has not made meaningful attempts at deeper creator incentive mechanisms, and airdrop distributions remain untouched. Aside from informal support during the Bagwork hype, Pump has not taken coordinated measures such as targeted airdrops, creator rewards, or other incentives, which could have been used to kickstart early activities, create more PvE (player versus environment) incentives, and provide space for creators to experiment without immediately damaging the community ecosystem.

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The good news is that this provides Pump with significant flexibility.

The unutilized “Community & Ecosystem Initiatives” fund pool remains an important lever the team can leverage when the model matures. If Pump can design a sustainable creator token incentive structure, it could open a new economic category for creators seeking monetization and audience expansion through crypto mechanisms.

Despite the potential profitability, before that, streaming media will continue to exhibit a series of short-lived hype cycles rather than a lasting, repeatable vertical.

On the token front, the main catalyst for Pump’s rise from about 0.025 to 0.085 is the team’s decision to use 100% of net revenue for buybacks.

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Initially, Pump planned to allocate about a quarter of its revenue for buybacks, but shifted to an almost entirely Hyperliquid-style buyback model. This change was made after the market clearly indicated that some buyback methods would not be recognized. This shift ignited one of the strongest large-cap token rebounds in the highly liquidity-scarce and challenging altcoin market this year.

Looking at the buyback-to-market cap ratio, currently no major token has a lower trading multiple.

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Based on current data, Pump’s annualized revenue is approximately $422 million, with a market cap of $1.84 billion, giving an MC/Rev ratio of 4.36x, and an annualized buyback yield of about 12.8%. This level is significantly lower than other large-cap tokens, including Hyperliquid’s approximately 8.01x MC/Rev and about 3.34% yield.

Even so, the market remains skeptical about Pump’s long-term commercial prospects.

Market concerns may include: whether the team can continue to deliver meaningful products; the impact of unlocking about 40% of tokens on the market; the final distribution of airdrops and creator incentives; and the overall contraction of Meme coin activity, reduced terminal events, and sustainability issues of Pump’s revenue base.

Despite these concerns, Pump still dominates the Meme coin issuance platform space, earning (and buyback) about $1 million daily even in the current extremely tough market environment.

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Pump’s daily Launchpad revenue has plummeted nearly 85% from its peak near $14 million at the start of the year, now only around $2 million. However, competitors have only posed a temporary threat to Pump’s position, failing to bring substantial challenge. This aligns with our initial forecast during the brief Bonk and Raydium challenge phases: even amid cyclical trading volume contractions, Pump maintains structural advantages and dominates industry activity.

The acquisition of Padre supports the view that Pump intends to expand its ecosystem beyond Solana and has integrated support for BNB assets via the Padre frontend. This also aligns with our earlier prediction that Pump will eventually acquire an end or related asset to strengthen user acquisition channels and integrate more user journeys.

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Beyond these moves, the team has recently maintained a low-profile strategy. They plan to hold an investor call, but as of writing, it has not yet occurred, so more details may be disclosed later.

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The leadership team has also expressed interest in a broader ICM (Initial Community Offering) category, though we believe this is not the core area of Pump’s current brand positioning or product advantage. Pump initially experimented with the Believe model but failed to gain real market attention. MetaDAO has become the dominant player in the “high-quality founders + community” funding space.

Moreover, the culture and structure of ICM seem misaligned with Pump’s brand positioning. Pump’s core branding revolves around speculation, speed, and creator Meme culture, rather than long-term governance or Futarchy-based systems. If Pump wants to succeed in ICM, it needs to lean toward governance-oriented structures and attract non-crypto teams interested in on-chain operations. However, this does not fully match the needs and positioning of Pump’s current users and creators. Although theoretically, if the team takes concrete actions, ICM could bring some potential benefits, we see it more as a secondary or optional direction rather than a natural extension of Pump’s existing flywheel in 2026.

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Looking ahead to 2026, Pump’s main challenges include: whether it can ultimately establish an incentive-compatible creator token model; whether it can realize substantial multi-chain expansion through Padre; how to manage risks related to token unlocks and declining revenue visibility; and which product vertical to focus on. Currently, Pump’s strategy appears scattered across multiple directions, including streaming media, ICM, and mobile.

At some point in the future, the team may need to focus on a single core breakthrough. Throughout most of 2025, this breakthrough seemed to be streaming media, but now that clarity has diminished.

A bigger question is whether Pump can still attract larger non-crypto creators. This may require redesigning the creator token flywheel mechanism, providing stronger, longer-term incentives to support viral spread beyond the crypto-native user base. Pump has the basic conditions to achieve this. The Bagwork hype in 2025 briefly demonstrated the potential success of this model, when Pump seemed close to crossing the chasm.

Additionally, Pump still has ample room to expand its product suite. A strategic direction worth serious consideration is entering iGaming or casino-related verticals. Adopting models similar to Kick or Stake, which align naturally with Pump’s speculative user base, could create deep synergy with its Meme coins and streaming media strategies, and the profitability potential in this area has already been validated.

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Shuffle’s net gambling revenue and weekly lottery distributions showcase the huge potential of this sector when executed successfully.

Pump’s mobile app is another underutilized advantage. Deeper expansion into mobile can broaden user acquisition channels, make the product more accessible to mainstream users, and provide more monetization scenarios for creators. If combined with iGaming, this could significantly expand Pump’s potential audience and strengthen its existing platform strengths.

Despite uncertainties, Pump remains one of the most resilient consumer applications in this cycle, maintaining a dominant position even amid market shifts. Achieving substantive progress in any key area could trigger a major market sentiment shift and help Pump break through, attracting a broader non-crypto-native user base.