Introduction

In recent years, Meme tokens have gradually become a major highlight in the cryptocurrency space, especially under the influence of social media and community-driven trends. Unlike traditional cryptocurrencies, the value of Meme tokens primarily stems from emotional appeal and group dynamics rather than technological applications or market demand. This phenomenon reflects a typical “attention economy” model, where Meme tokens attract public attention and leverage the broad dissemination of social platforms to become the focus of investors quickly.

The Meme token market currently features multiple themes, including zoological, political, and AI-driven narratives. These tokens rely on meme culture, social trends, and community-driven momentum, making them one of the most entertaining and speculative sectors in the crypto market. The zoological theme, represented by PEPE and WIF, continuously rotates through trending cycles by capitalizing on the humor and community engagement associated with animal imagery. The political theme, on the other hand, has surged in popularity due to events such as the U.S. presidential election. However, it often sees rapid declines in interest due to its event-dependent nature. The AI theme follows the global artificial intelligence boom, with projects like GOAT driving the rise of new narratives. Meanwhile, emerging themes such as art and science have also surfaced with the support of token launch platforms, providing new investment logic and potential for the market.

Meme Concept Classification and Token Market Cap (Source: Gate Research)

Celebrity involvement has further fueled the hype around Meme tokens. For example, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly mentioned Dogecoin on social media, injecting additional market momentum and attracting widespread attention from global investors and the media. Similar phenomena have occurred with other “celebrity coins,” where notable figures launch Meme tokens related to themselves to increase exposure and discussion. Former U.S. President Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump have each launched their own namesake Meme tokens. These tokens not only garnered massive attention in a short period but also sparked extensive discussions on the intersection of politics, public figures, and cryptocurrency.

Why are Meme Token Launch Platforms Booming?

Before the emergence of Meme token launch platforms, the issuance of Meme tokens faced numerous challenges, making it difficult for ordinary users and creators to participate in the market smoothly. First, the technical barrier was high. Creators needed to have smart contract programming skills and manually deploy contracts, manage liquidity, and set trading mechanisms, which was extremely difficult for users without a programming background. Second, there were high financial and resource requirements. Traditional token issuance typically required substantial startup capital, including contract deployment fees, marketing funds, and initial liquidity, making it difficult for individual creators and small teams to enter the market. Furthermore, security risks were severe. The early Meme token market was flooded with numerous “Rug Pull” projects, where project teams quickly withdrew funds after token issuance, causing significant losses for investors. Additionally, token distribution was often unfair. Many Meme tokens conducted private sales or reserved allocations for the team before issuance, leading to early holders controlling a large portion of the supply. This made market prices susceptible to manipulation, putting retail investors at a disadvantage. At the same time, liquidity management was complex. Project teams had to manage liquidity pools themselves, and any misstep could result in extreme price fluctuations, undermining investor confidence. As the popularity of Meme tokens continued to rise, the emergence of decentralized Meme token launch platforms provided a new solution for creators and investors. These platforms effectively addressed the shortcomings of traditional issuance models and offered the following advantages:

1. Enhanced Security to Mitigate Rug Pull Risks

Decentralized platforms use smart contracts and bonding curve mechanisms to ensure token prices fluctuate based on market demand rather than being controlled by a few individuals. This mechanism improves price transparency, reduces manipulation risks, and prevents the kind of exit scams that have plagued ecosystems like Solana’s “pay-to-mint” projects. As a result, investor interests are better protected.

2. Lower Issuance Barriers and Simplified Processes

These platforms provide automated token issuance tools, allowing creators to launch their own Meme tokens without requiring programming skills or substantial funds. Additionally, built-in liquidity management and token-burning mechanisms further simplify operations, enabling creators to focus on creativity and marketing rather than technical challenges.

3. Community Growth and Ecosystem Expansion

The low barriers to entry and fair distribution models of decentralized Meme token launch platforms attract a large number of creators and investors. As these platforms gain traction, their ecosystems expand, creating more investment opportunities, boosting token trading volumes, and driving a positive growth cycle.

4. Fair Launch Mechanisms to Prevent Market Manipulation

Unlike traditional token launches that rely on private sales or team allocations, Meme token launch platforms typically use a fixed supply mechanism with no presale or team allocations. This ensures that everyone has an equal opportunity to participate, preventing “whale” manipulation and ensuring prices are determined purely by market demand. This creates a fairer investment environment for all participants.

The explosive growth of Meme tokens is closely tied to the rise of innovative launch platforms. Decentralized launch platforms lower the entry barriers for creators and investors and optimize the token issuance process through automation, ensuring more efficient liquidity management. With multiple platforms emerging, Meme token issuance has become more diverse, further accelerating market growth. Up next, we will explore some of the most well-known Meme token launch platforms and analyze their market performance.

Introduction to Different Token Launch Platforms

Pump.fun: Platform Overview and Performance

Platform Introduction

Pump.fun is a decentralized platform designed to create and trade Meme tokens on the Solana blockchain. The platform allows users to easily create their own Meme token by providing basic details such as token name, symbol, description, and avatar. Additionally, users can trade tokens created by others directly on the platform.

Pump.fun utilizes a bonding curve mechanism, meaning token prices increase as demand rises. This system incentivizes early investors by allowing them to earn greater rewards as the token gains popularity.

Pump.fun Product Interface (Source: Pump.fun)

Pump.fun’s pricing model is based on the Constant Product Curve, which determines token prices through a virtual liquidity pool. The key formula governing this mechanism is:

vTOKEN×vSOL=kvTOKEN \times vSOL = kvTOKEN×vSOL=k

where vTOKEN represents the virtual reserve of the launched token, vSOL represents the virtual reserve of SOL, and k is a constant that dictates the shape of the price curve.

• In the early stages of a token’s lifecycle, the price rises slowly.
• As demand increases, the price accelerates upwards, encouraging early participation by rewarding early buyers with lower prices and higher potential returns.

Tokenomics and Liquidity Management

• Initial Token Supply: 1 billion tokens per project.
• Initial Virtual Token Reserve (vTOKEN): 1,073,000,000 tokens.
• Initial Virtual SOL Reserve (vSOL): 30 SOL.

As market demand grows, token prices rise, driving increased trading activity and liquidity.

A key feature of Pump.fun is automated liquidity migration. When a token’s market cap reaches $100,000, the platform automatically transfers liquidity to the Raydium liquidity pool. This automated process simplifies token issuance and liquidity management, lowering the entry barriers for creators and investors.

Pump.fun Data Performance

As of February 5, 2025, Pump.fun has accumulated over 2.76 million SOL in transaction fees, reflecting its massive trading volume and market influence. The platform has launched a total of 7.5 million tokens, with more than 98,000 tokens successfully listed on Raydium.

In comparison, Base, the second-largest ecosystem for trading-enabled Meme token issuance, saw 953,300 tokens launched in 2024, making Pump.fun’s issuance volume 7.86 times higher. According to DefiLlama, Pump.fun ranks 9th among all blockchain protocols in total revenue, highlighting its strong momentum and position as one of the most active protocols in the crypto market.

Pump.fun Protocol-Related Data (Source: Gate Research)

The number of tokens launched on Pump.fun has repeatedly hit new highs, showing significant cyclical fluctuations. In early March 2024, driven by the meme token frenzy surrounding BOME and Slerf, token issuance surged rapidly. However, issuance gradually decreased as the crypto market declined and the hype effect weakened. After October, as the market rebounded and the meme sector recovered, issuance volume surged again, reaching a peak of 71,733 on January 13, 2025. This demonstrates the strong correlation between token issuance, market sentiment, and trending topics.

Pump.fun Daily Token Issuance (Source: Gate Research)

Tokens launched via Pump.fun have exhibited strong momentum in Solana DEX trading volume. Since May 2024, trading volume has been steadily increasing, with particularly strong performance in the latter half of the year. In January 2025, tokens launched by Pump.fun accounted for 46.10% of Solana DEX trading volume, with a monthly transaction volume reaching $11.917 billion, making it a key driving force behind the growth of the Solana DEX ecosystem. As a result, the overall trading volume of Solana DEX experienced rapid growth, surpassing other blockchain ecosystems and securing its position as the industry leader.

Pump.fun Trading Volume Share (Source: Gate Research)

Tokens that successfully launch on the platform often quickly attract market attention, with remarkable wealth effects. For example, Fartcoin’s price surged by an astonishing 105,118 times from its Pump.fun issuance price and achieved a 6,307x increase from its initial liquidity price on Raydium. Similarly, WOULD and arc saw gains of 51,781x and 36,391x, respectively, drawing in many speculative traders.

This massive wealth effect has not only ignited investor enthusiasm but has also reinforced a speculative market atmosphere. The speculation-driven frenzy has fueled token price surges and significantly increased user participation.

Market Cap Rankings of Pump.fun Tokens (Source: Pump.fun)

SunPump Platform Introduction and Data

SunPump Platform Introduction

SunPump is the first Tron Meme Launchpad launched by Tron’s founder, Justin Sun. Leveraging the ecosystem resources and traffic support provided by Tron, SunPump quickly gained user favor within just a few weeks, with traffic and revenue once surpassing Pump.Fun.

Similar to Pump.Fun, SunPump adopts a bonding curve pricing mechanism, ensuring that creators can launche Memecoins at an extremely low cost. Creators or project teams can easily create meme tokens through the SunPump platform. When issuing tokens, the platform follows a bonding curve mechanism, where the token price increases gradually as more buyers enter. This ensures that the token price is driven by market demand, preventing manipulation by a small group of people or extreme price fluctuations. Once a token reaches a market cap of $69,420, the system automatically injects liquidity into SunSwap V2, adding 100,000 TRX and 200 million tokens to the liquidity pool.

SunPump Token Issuance (Source: SunPump)

The SunPump fee structure consists of: 1% transaction fee – the platform charges a 1% fee on each trade. Token creation fee: 20 TRX – users must pay this fee when creating a new token on the platform, covering technical support and resource consumption. Liquidity migration fee: 3,000 TRX – required when migrating liquidity. The success of SunPump is largely attributed to the strong industry influence of Justin Sun and a series of well-planned marketing campaigns. By leveraging Tron’s traffic support and innovative incentive programs, SunPump quickly attracted a large number of creators and users, forming a strong community effect.

Firstly, SunPump utilizes Tron’s gas subsidies and a multi-million dollar incentive program, significantly lowering entry barriers for users and developers. In multiple interviews, Justin Sun emphasized that these subsidies and incentives have played a crucial role in rapidly accumulating user and creator participation, providing strong support for the platform’s growth.

SunPump Liquidity Mining (Source: SunPump)

Secondly, SunPump introduced an invite rebate program, further incentivizing users to promote the platform. By sharing an exclusive referral link, users can earn 10% to 20% commission on the transaction fees generated by their referrals. This mechanism has not only attracted a large number of new users but also boosted the platform’s engagement and visibility. To make participation easier, users can connect their Tron wallet and generate a unique invite link to share with others. Once a referred user completes a transaction, the inviter receives the corresponding rebate.

SunPump also offers a Telegram Bot feature, providing a more flexible referral mechanism. Users can generate exclusive invite links via the bot, invite others to trade, and earn up to 35% commission rewards: Level 1 referrers earn 30% commission. Level 2 referrers earn 5% commission. This multi-level rebate model effectively motivates users to spread and recommend the platform. With these various efforts, SunPump has achieved impressive performance since its launch.

SunPump Data Performance

Since its launch, SunPump has demonstrated strong market activity and a clear growth trend:

The total fees collected by the platform have reached 36,135,902 TRX, which is approximately $5,691,560 USD based on the current exchange rate. This indicates that SunPump has successfully attracted a substantial number of users and transaction volume within a short period, showcasing its strong market appeal and liquidity. The total number of tokens launched on the platform stands at 95,029, reflecting the platform’s active token issuance and high market demand. As SunPump continues to attract more users, the number of launched tokens is expected to increase further, contributing to the expansion of its ecosystem. The number of successfully listed Sunswap tokens is 1,798, further validating SunPump’s effectiveness in facilitating token circulation and trading. As a key token within the platform’s ecosystem, the successful listing of Sunswap highlights the platform’s growth potential.

SunPump Product Data (Image Source: Gate Learn Creator Evelyn)

The token issuance activity on SunPump saw a significant surge during its initial launch phase, peaking within just a few days. From August to September 2024, the daily issuance of tokens skyrocketed to thousands per day. This surge reflects the platform’s ability to quickly capture user attention and engagement, leading to an early-stage market demand boom. However, over time, the number of launched tokens declined significantly. Starting in September 2024, the platform experienced a sharp drop in token issuance activity. By 2025, token issuance had nearly ground to a halt, returning to almost zero levels. This suggests that while SunPump initially gained substantial traction and trading activity, it struggled to maintain its growth momentum over time.

SunPump Token Issuance Trends (Image Source: Dune)

The chart below displays the top 16 highest market-cap tokens launched on SunPump. Each of these tokens has a unique market positioning and theme, spanning various domains, including crypto mascots, cultural education, and pop culture. Their performance on the platform reflects the diversity of SunPump’s token ecosystem and highlights its ability to attract different types of projects and creators.

Some examples include: Sundog & Tron Bull: Focused on mascots within the Tron ecosystem. PUSS & PePe: Leveraging meme culture and internet trends to attract young, socially engaged communities. Afro’s & Crypto Zillion Club: Centered around cultural education and wealth accumulation, appealing to a broader audience.

SunPump Token Market Cap Rankings (Source: SunPump)

Moonshot Platform Introduction and Data Overview

Moonshot Platform Introduction

Moonshot is a decentralized token issuance platform under DEX Screener, designed to provide creators and investors with a more transparent and fair token trading environment. As part of DEX Screener, Moonshot leverages its strong traffic support and technical advantages to attract many users and creators to participate in the issuance and trading of Meme tokens.

The platform adopts a bonding curve mechanism, with a strictly capped maximum supply of 1 billion tokens, ensuring a fair investment opportunity for investors. In addition to its fair token issuance mechanism, Moonshot supports multiple blockchain platforms, including Solana and several EVM-compatible chains such as Abstract, Base, and Berachain. This cross-chain support expands the platform’s market access and enhances its liquidity and user diversity.

When the platform’s market cap reaches 500 SOL or 25 ETH, all remaining tokens and liquidity are automatically migrated to Meteora, Raydium, or Uniswap. This mechanism ensures continuous token liquidity and the healthy development of the market. To further incentivize platform activity, Moonshot has introduced the AirLock rewards program. Once a token successfully migrates to Meteora, the platform permanently locks the liquidity provider’s LP tokens and distributes LP rewards every 24 hours to the top 50 holders. This reward mechanism boosts community engagement and encourages users to hold tokens long-term to earn additional rewards.

Moonshot Data Performance

Since its launch, Moonshot has been active in token issuance and market participation. The platform has accumulated 27,930 SOL and 3,760,000 USDT in contract fees, demonstrating significant trading and token activity. Additionally, a total of 185,904 tokens have been launched on the platform, reflecting strong participation from token creators. Among them, 1,097 tokens have successfully launched on Raydium, contributing to the platform’s liquidity and trading volume growth.

Moonshot Product Data (Source: Gate Learn Creator Evelyn)

However, after September 2024, the number of token issuances dropped rapidly and remained at a relatively low level. This trend reflects the platform’s high activity in its early launch phase, but it failed to sustain continued interest from new projects or users. Possible reasons include a decline in market enthusiasm or a lack of ongoing innovation and attractiveness from the platform. Entering 2025, token issuance numbers remained sluggish, indicating a significant decline in platform activity. Moonshot struggled to maintain its competitiveness and appeal in the market.

Overall, Moonshot’s token issuance activity followed a typical “early-stage boom” pattern, where initial excitement led to a surge in participation but later declined due to factors such as market saturation and a lack of continued innovation. To regain its market activity and attract more project teams and investors, Moonshot will need to explore new incentive mechanisms and product innovations.

Daily Token Issuance on Moonshot (Source: Dune)

Virtuals Protocol Platform Overview and Data Performance

Virtuals Protocol Platform Overview

Virtuals Protocol is similar to traditional Meme token launch platforms, but its core objectives and functionalities are distinct. Virtuals Protocol is a platform dedicated to AI Agent issuance, specifically built on the Base blockchain. It aims to provide an ownership layer for AI agents in gaming and entertainment, fostering a decentralized economic system. Unlike Meme token launch platforms, Virtuals focuses on AI agent creation and management, allowing users to launch AI agent tokens quickly and in a simplified process. The platform leverages smart contracts and tokenization mechanisms to efficiently manage these AI agents’ economic value.

Virtuals Protocol Token Issuance Interface (Source: Virtuals)

Virtuals was initially launched in 2021 as a gaming guild and investment platform. With the rapid advancement of AI technology, the platform transformed in 2023, shifting its focus to building an AI agent ecosystem. The core objective of the platform is to drive self-management and profitability within virtual worlds through the autonomous behavior and collaboration of AI agents, thereby creating an intelligent agent-driven virtual economy. Each AI agent has an independent digital wallet, allowing them to interact with other agents and exchange services, forming a dynamic agent-based economic system.

Compared to traditional token issuance platforms such as Pump.fun, Virtuals follows a similar token issuance model but integrates AI agent elements, bringing additional revenue streams to the platform. This model drives economic growth through token market circulation and fosters long-term platform development by enhancing AI agent interaction and collaboration. Unlike Pump.fun’s fast token launches, Virtuals focuses more on attracting top AI teams to drive technological innovation and ecosystem development, ensuring platform quality and sustainability.

The platform’s Initial Agent Offering (IAO) allows creators to launch AI agents by locking a certain amount of $VIRTUAL tokens and creating a liquidity pool through a bonding curve. Once the bonding curve accumulates a specified amount of $VIRTUAL tokens, the agent will “graduate” and establish a liquidity pool paired with $VIRTUAL on Uniswap or Meteora. The liquidity will be locked for ten years to ensure long-term stability. Additionally, the total supply of each agent token is fixed at 1 billion with no pre-mining or internal allocations, guaranteeing a fair launch.

Within the platform, all transactions involving agent tokens will incur a 1% tax, which will be used to cover operational costs such as inference and GPU usage. Before an agent graduates, the tax revenue will be stored in the protocol’s treasury. After graduation, the tax will be distributed as follows: 30% to the agent’s creator. 20% to the agent’s partners. 50% to the agent’s sub-DAO, supporting future community governance and development. This mechanism ensures the long-term sustainability of AI agents and upholds fair launch and operational principles.

Virtuals Protocol Data Performance

Since the launch of Virtuals Protocol, the total market capitalization of launched AI agents has reached $543 million, with a total of 17,420 tokens launched. The cumulative trading volume has exceeded $6.8 billion, generating $36.97 million in total trading revenue. These figures demonstrate the strong demand and high trading activity in the AI agent market. The platform has earned considerable revenue from these transactions, reflecting its broad market appeal and promising growth prospects.

SunPump Product Data (Source: Gate Learn Contributor Evelyn)

Between November and December 2024, the number of AI agents created surged rapidly, indicating that the platform or ecosystem attracted a large influx of users and developers. As market enthusiasm soared, the number of AI agents created approached 1,000 per day at its peak. During January and February 2025, despite the market entering a downtrend, AI agent creation remained somewhat volatile, reflecting the fluctuating demand. Over time, this volatility gradually stabilized, suggesting that after an initial explosive growth phase, the market transitioned into a more stable stage. This stabilization also indicated a decline in user engagement and platform hype as the ecosystem matured.

Daily Token Issuance of Virtuals Protocol (Source: Dune)

The price of VIRTUAL, the native token of Virtuals Protocol, skyrocketed from November onward, surpassing $4 and reaching an all-time high. This surge was driven by increased platform activity and rising user demand, particularly since users needed to hold VIRTUAL tokens to purchase tokens launched on the platform, thereby sustaining demand and high market participation. However, the price quickly retraced, reflecting shifts in market demand and a reduction in speculative buying.

VIRTUAL Price Volatility (Source: CoinGecko)

Several notable projects within the ecosystem—Toshi ($TOSHI), aixbt ($AIXBT), and G.A.M.E ($GAME)—have exhibited different market trends: Toshi ($TOSHI): Initially launched as a pet-themed meme token, Toshi later pivoted into an AI token, incorporating automated tweet functionalities that attracted market attention and user interest. With a market cap of $302.03M, it demonstrated solid market appeal. aixbt ($AIXBT): With a market cap of $185.81M, aixbt’s biggest advantage lies in its strong technological foundation. It features a highly automated system capable of posting and replying to over 2,000 tweets daily, ensuring continuous engagement and unique positioning within the AI agent market. G.A.M.E ($GAME): With a market cap of $40.72M, G.A.M.E functions as a productivity-focused project with relatively high market activity. However, it faced a -4.97% drop in 24-hour price performance, suggesting that its token price is highly influenced by market sentiment and investor behavior. Overall, Toshi and aixbt have shown strong market stability and growth potential, while G.A.M.E faces price correction challenges. To enhance its competitiveness, G.A.M.E may need to refine its product functionalities and adjust its market strategies.

Market Capitalization of Virtuals Protocol Issued Tokens (Source: Virtuals Protocol)

Platform Comparison

Project Summary Comparison

Why Pump.fun Maintains its Leading Position

Solana Ecosystem’s Strong Support

Pump.fun chose to build its platform on the Solana blockchain, which provides it with a significant competitive advantage. Solana’s high transaction speed and low fees allow Pump.fun users to enjoy a smoother trading experience. Additionally, Solana’s efficient performance ensures that the platform can handle a large volume of transactions, further boosting Pump.fun’s market share within the Solana ecosystem. In contrast, other platforms may lack such deep blockchain integration or may be constrained by blockchain performance bottlenecks, limiting their trading activity and market penetration. As shown in the chart above, with more and more trading bots being developed around Pump.fun, the platform has further solidified its leadership in the market.

Trading Bot Revenue Rankings (Source: DefiLlama)

Moonshot enables users to easily convert fiat currency into meme coins by supporting fiat on-ramp methods such as Apple Pay, credit cards, and PayPal, without requiring in-depth knowledge of blockchain technology or managing wallets and private keys. This simplified “zero-barrier” experience is especially suitable for Web2 users who have never interacted with cryptocurrency before. According to appfigures data, Moonshot has successfully climbed to the second position in the U.S. App Store’s free financial apps ranking.

U.S. Financial App Download Rankings (Source: appfigures)

Early Market Advantage and Brand Effect

Since its inception, Pump.fun has accumulated a large user base, laying a solid foundation for its subsequent growth. As the platform’s user count increased, more developers and project teams began choosing Pump.fun as their preferred token issuance platform. With its vast and active community, new projects launching on Pump.fun quickly gain exposure and market recognition, creating a positive feedback loop.

Other platforms, which entered the market later, found it difficult to replicate Pump.fun’s first-mover advantage and brand effect, further solidifying its leading position in the industry.

Conclusion

With the rapid expansion of the Meme token market, more launch platforms have emerged across multiple blockchain ecosystems. These platforms streamline the token issuance process while attracting creators and investors through decentralized mechanisms, low-cost token launches, and innovative pricing and liquidity management models. Despite rising competition, Pump.fun remains dominant on the Solana network, standing out due to its strong market momentum and innovative mechanisms. Although new platforms continue to enter the market, Pump.fun’s well-established ecosystem and ongoing user experience optimizations position it as a long-term leader in the Meme token launch space. As technology advances and more platforms emerge, the Meme token market is expected to become increasingly diverse, bringing new opportunities and risks. The competition among Meme token launch platforms will intensify, further driving ecosystem growth and innovation in the broader blockchain industry.