Pump.fun co-founder Alon Cohen said the Solana-based memecoin launchpad is overhauling its creator fee system after concluding that the existing model may have skewed incentives.
“Creator fees need change,” Cohen wrote in a Friday post on X, acknowledging that the Dynamic Fees V1 system, introduced several months ago, succeeded in driving activity but failed to produce sustainable market behavior.
According to Cohen, the mechanism encouraged low-risk token creation at the expense of high-risk trading, which he described as “dangerous” because traders are the core source of liquidity and volume on the platform.
Cohen said the initial rollout showed early promise. Within weeks, new creators began launching tokens and livestreaming, fueling what he described as some of the strongest onchain conditions of 2025. Pump.fun’s bonding curve volumes more than doubled during that period, according to charts shared alongside his post. However, the surge proved short-lived and exposed structural weaknesses.
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Creator fees encouraged token minting over liquidity
While creator fees helped serious project tokens with active teams, Cohen said they did little to change the behavior of the average memecoin deployer. In many cases, fees became a blunt incentive to mint tokens rather than build liquid markets.
“The platform so far fails at providing a good user experience here, oftentimes requiring users to CTO [Community Takeover] coins, trust other people to fulfill their promises, etc,” he wrote.
In a series of posts on X, Pump.fun outlined the first phase of changes. The platform is introducing creator fee sharing, allowing creators and CTO administrators to allocate specific percentages of fees to up to 10 wallets after launch. Teams will also be able to transfer coin ownership and revoke update authority.
Cohen said that no one from the Pump.fun team will accept fees under any circumstances, describing the feature as “for trenchers.” Fees remain claimable at any time by recipients and are not forfeited if left unclaimed.
Related: Pump.fun Revenue Hits 2025 Low as Memecoin Hype Fades
Pump.fun becomes dominant Solana memecoin launchpad
Pump.fun has emerged as the leading launchpad for Solana memecoins by combining near-frictionless token creation with a standardized route to liquidity.
The platform briefly lost ground in July when rival LetsBonk overtook it on volume and revenue, but momentum quickly shifted back. Pump.fun reinforced its position through aggressive PUMP token buybacks and a revamped creator payout program under Project Ascend. By late summer, trackers again showed Pump.fun controlling around 75%–80% of Solana’s memecoin launches.
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