Pump.fun is a Solana launchpad where anyone can create a memecoin for free, which then trades on a bonding curve until enough is bought for it to "graduate" to Pump.fun's own exchange, PumpSwap. It's where a large share of new Solana memecoins start, and most of them never graduate.
Risk notice: Crypto trading is high risk and memecoins can go to zero in minutes. Trading bots use hot wallets. This page is not financial advice; only trade what you can afford to lose.
This guide explains the mechanics using Pump.fun's own docs, checked September 26, 2026.
Creating a token
Pump.fun's coin creation guide lists four steps: connect a Solana wallet, fill in the name, ticker, description and image, approve the transaction, and the coin trades on the bonding curve right away. The guide says "There is no fee to create a coin on Pump.fun." The name, symbol and image can't be changed later.
That zero cost is why there are so many tokens. Solidus Labs counted more than 7 million Pump.fun launches between January 2024 and April 2025 (CoinDesk).
How the bonding curve works
Instead of a normal liquidity pool funded by the creator, a new token trades against a pricing formula. Pump.fun's bonding curve page describes it as "a constant-product AMM," where "two virtual reserves (SOL and the coin's supply) are multiplied together to form an invariant."
In practice:
- Every buy raises the price and every sell lowers it.
- "Price impact scales with trade size: large trades pay a worse fill than small ones."
- Early buyers get the lowest prices, which is why snipers and bots race to buy in the first seconds.
Pump.fun's developer docs show the starting parameters: a total supply of 1 billion tokens, of which about 793.1 million are available on the curve. The curve is marked "complete" when those real token reserves reach zero.
Graduation (migration)
Once a coin's market cap on the curve "hits the graduation threshold, the curve is closed and the entire liquidity pool is migrated atomically to PumpSwap," per Pump.fun's docs. After that:
- The token trades on a normal AMM pool on PumpSwap.
- Pump.fun says "the pool is owned by the protocol" and it doesn't remove liquidity after graduation.
- Its developer docs say the LP tokens from the PumpSwap pool "are then burnt."
Before March 2025, graduated tokens moved to Raydium with a 6 SOL migration fee. Pump.fun launched PumpSwap on March 20, 2025 to make migration instant and remove that fee (The Block).
Graduation is a big moment for traders. Terminals have tools to buy or sell automatically when it happens, such as Axiom's migration actions and Trojan's migration sniper.
Fees Pump.fun documents
From Pump.fun's fee page, last updated May 20, 2026:
| Action | Fee |
|---|---|
| Create a coin | 0 SOL |
| Trade on the bonding curve | 1.25% (0.95% protocol, 0.30% creator, 0% LP) |
| Graduation to PumpSwap | 0.015 SOL |
| PumpSwap, smallest SOL-pair tier (0-420 SOL market cap) | 1.25% (0.30% creator, 0.93% protocol, 0.02% LP) |
| PumpSwap, largest SOL-pair tier (98,240 SOL and up) | 0.30% (0.05% creator, 0.05% protocol, 0.20% LP) |
| Non-canonical PumpSwap pools | 0.30% |
These fees stack on top of your bot's fee. On a bonding-curve token, a 1% bot plus Pump.fun's 1.25% is about 2.25% each way before priority fees and slippage (our arithmetic). See Solana trading bot fees compared and Solana priority fees and slippage.
How many tokens graduate
Few. Cryptopolitan, citing Dune data, reported in February 2026 that weekly graduations reached 1.15% of all launches, the highest since summer 2025. It said the rate had ranged between about 0.5% and 2%.
Graduating doesn't mean a token keeps its value. It only means enough was bought on the curve.
The risks
Most tokens go to zero. Solidus Labs found only about 97,000 of more than 7 million Pump.fun tokens kept at least $1,000 in liquidity and classed 98.6% as rug pulls or pump-and-dumps. Pump.fun rejected that label, saying most memecoins "are worth little in the long run. That's precisely the point" (CoinDesk).
No hard rug, but plenty of soft ones. BONKbot's safety docs note Pump.fun prevents hard rugs (pulling liquidity), but holders with a large share of supply can still dump (BONKbot).
Bundled launches. GMGN cites research across 41,470 Pump.fun launches finding that coordinated accounts held 36.5% of supply on average (GMGN). See how to spot a rug pull on Solana.
Speed and snipers. The curve rewards being first, so bots dominate the first seconds. Buying later means buying from them.
Platform risk. In May 2024, a former Pump.fun employee exploited the platform for about $1.9 million, affecting 1,882 wallets; Pump.fun compensated users (Helius).
Trading Pump.fun tokens with a bot
You can trade on pump.fun directly, but most active traders use a bot or terminal for speed, presets and safety checks.
- Padre (Terminal): Pump.fun's own web terminal since it acquired Padre in October 2025 (Blockworks). Its sign-in page advertised "Up to 35% cashback" when we checked on September 26, 2026. It has no official fee page. Open Terminal
- Axiom: the most-used Solana terminal, with Pulse and migration actions.
- Trojan: Telegram and web, with a sniper that can filter by launch platform.
- GMGN: token security panel with bundle % and dev labels.
For a ranked list, see best Pump.fun trading bot and best Solana sniper bot. Our list order on the home page is an editors' order (usage, score and ease of starting), not sorted by score.