Meme Launchpad Chaos: Pons Takes Down Pump.fun in Two Months, Who's Next?

The threshold is down to zero, and the fee war has begun.

Written by: Cathy

In the summer of 2017, a new species emerged on Ethereum: by writing a smart contract and drafting a white paper, one could raise over a hundred million dollars from around the world. This was called an ICO.

Thousands of projects were launched, most of which went to zero. However, the platforms and investment firms that earned transaction fees thrived.

Then came the IEO, where exchanges helped filter projects and allocate quotas. Later, IDO moved on-chain, but still required a large amount of money to build liquidity pools. The game changed again with inscriptions, which no longer required fundraising and operated on a first-come, first-served basis.

Each generation lowered the threshold. Each generation ignited a market cycle. The money earned by platforms often far exceeded that of the project teams.

By 2026, the joint curve Meme launchpad slashed the threshold to zero. Anyone could launch a token with just a few clicks, without initial capital, approval, or code.

But the hottest battleground this time is not in Solana.

It is a new chain that went live on July 1, accumulating $34.6 billion in DEX trading volume in just two months, with the daily expenses of its Meme launchpad peaking at $6.33 million, repeatedly stepping on the toes of the leader, Pump.fun.

It’s called Robinhood Chain.

01 Two Months, From Zero to Daily Expenses of $6.33 Million

Robinhood Chain is built on the Arbitrum Orbit architecture, with extremely low Gas fees on L2, and users of its wallet enjoy a 90-day Gas subsidy. Transaction friction is almost zero, leading to explosive growth of the Meme launchpad.

The top contender, Pons, launched on July 13. Its model is simple and straightforward: it charges a 1% transaction fee, returning 70% directly to token creators, while keeping only 30% for the protocol. Of the remaining funds, 80% is used to buy back and burn Pons tokens.

In less than two months, 30% of the total supply entered a black hole address, amounting to about 300 million tokens. Pons rose from zero to nearly $1, with a market cap that once surpassed $600 million.

From launch to becoming the fourth highest fee-generating protocol on the network, Pons took less than 50 days. Pump.fun took over two years to reach the same position.

On September 3, Pons' daily protocol fees exceeded $6 million, ranking fourth in the network, only behind Tether, Uniswap, and Circle. Pump.fun was left far behind. On September 2, Robinhood Chain's daily chain revenue reached $4.01 million, while Solana's total chain revenue on the same day was only $81,700.

Robinhood Chain is not just home to Pons.

A Meme launchpad called LONG did something bolder: it paired new tokens not with ETH, but with stocks like Nvidia and the S&P 500 to create liquidity. Memes and stocks intersect here, creating an on-chain casino and Wall Street.

LONG's tokenized stocks saw daily trading volumes surpassing $425 million at one point, accounting for 20% of the total locked value in stocks on the chain. It even packaged stock tokens with 3x leverage, bringing traditional financial derivatives to a chain just two months old.

The entire chain has launched over 190 types of stock tokens, with peak daily DEX trading volumes hitting $3.7 billion, nearing Solana. From memes to stocks, Robinhood Chain has grown into an on-chain trading venue for hybrid assets.

Pons' V2 upgrade locks liquidity for tokens after graduation in Uniswap V4 pools. Interestingly, Uniswap later launched its own Pools.trade, also running on the same underlying liquidity. Regardless of which front-end wins, the funds ultimately settle in Uniswap's pools.

But all of this is built on one premise: this chain is only two months old.

L2's Gas is already low enough to be negligible, allowing creators to self-trade at minimal cost, paying 1% to get back 70%. How much of that massive trading volume reflects genuine demand?

The answer remains unclear.

02 Everyone is Competing for Token Issuance Rights

The explosion of Robinhood Chain is just one facet of the war.

In Solana, Pump.fun remains the Meme launchpad with the highest cumulative revenue, having taken over $1.23 billion. Its moat is closed-loop: tokens graduate into its self-built PumpSwap exchange, allowing it to earn fees throughout their lifecycle. However, its daily fees have been surpassed multiple times by Pons.

Pump.fun hasn’t been idle either. It launched Mayhem Mode, introducing AI trading agents to combat sniper bots and protect retail investors from front-running. 50% of PumpSwap's protocol revenue is shared with creators.

The challengers are not just Pons.

LetsBONK.fun introduced a dynamic logarithmic pricing curve on Solana, lowering the early price slope to give retail investors a fairer price in the first few minutes after opening. Each wallet is limited to purchases within the first 60 seconds, specifically targeting front-running bots. Its market share on Solana's Meme launchpad soared from 13% to 78%. About 50% of the platform fees are repurchased and burned, benefiting BONK holders.

Raydium is also feeling the pressure. Tokens that originally graduated from Pump.fun automatically entered Raydium's pools, contributing fees to it with each subsequent transaction. With the launch of PumpSwap, this revenue stream was cut off. Raydium directly launched LaunchLab to compete head-on.

On the Base chain, Zora turned token issuance into a creator tool. Each creator has a unique token, with a total supply of 1 billion, half going into liquidity pools and half unlocked to the creator over five years.

On July 30, the number of new tokens launched on Zora accounted for 44.6% of all chains, helping Base surpass Solana for the first time in token issuance volume. Over $27 million has been allocated to creators, and Zora's token has increased eightfold during the same period.

Believe has gone even further. By replying to a designated account on X with a token name, the backend automatically completes the on-chain deployment. Its V2 version introduced a

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