Bonk.fun vs Pump.fun
The return of the bulls has once again ignited the excitement in the Meme sector. Recently, there has been a continuous surge of gold dogs on the chain, seemingly reviving the lively sentiment of dog trading.
However, unlike the previous round where Pump.fun dominated the on-chain meme landscape, this time more challengers have emerged, attempting to shake Pump.fun’s status as the meme launchpad ruler.
After all, earning revenue through transaction fees by launching memes every day is an enticing business. Consequently, various launchpads have recently appeared in clusters, each showcasing gold dogs attempting to capture the limited attention in the existing market.
In this environment, instances of two platforms releasing the same name meme have begun to emerge. For instance, today both letsBONK.fun (hereinafter referred to as Bonk.fun) and Pump.fun have launched a token named $GLONK, with both platforms fully supporting their respective versions.
Bonk.fun is jointly incubated by the Raydium and Bonk communities, with Raydium providing technical support through its LaunchLab platform, while the Bonk community relies on the influence of its meme token $BONK to provide a solid foundation for Bonk.fun.
This is clearly a strong competitor to Pump.fun. On the surface, this appears to be a battle for tokens, where players are betting on which Glonk will prevail; but in reality, it is a war of infrastructure within the Solana ecosystem, concerning not only the market value and trading volume of tokens but also the technical strength of the platforms, community support, and developmental prospects.
More importantly, it relates to the tangible platform revenue and benefits. Tokens equal popularity and attention; high-end platform competition often manifests in the form of a price race for a particular token.
Competing Tokens, Founders at Odds
From the current situation, Bonk.fun’s $GLONK seems to be outperforming. As of the time of writing, the market value of Bonk.fun’s version of $GLONK is around $16.5 million, while Pump.fun’s version is at $4.4 million; in terms of trading volume and liquidity, Bonk.fun’s version of $GLONK is also leading significantly.
The price fluctuations of the $GLONK token reflect the intense clash between the founders of Bonk.fun and Pump.fun. Although there has been no direct confrontation, Bonk.fun’s developer SolportTom (@SolportTom) and Pump.fun’s Alon (@a1lon9) are both rallying for their respective platforms.
Tom posted that everyone should support Bonk.fun; just two minutes later, Alon followed up with a similar phrase, “SEND THE OG,” implying that Pump.fun is the true OG of meme launching, with clear references and implications.
What’s more exciting is that both sides are gradually clarifying their intentions, explicitly stating that their version of $GLONK is the optimal choice. Tom believes the market has already made its decision, as the price of the GLONK token speaks for itself, directly tagging Alon: “The market value of the token on Bonk.fun has reached $3 million, while Pump.fun’s is only $170,000, yet someone posted saying ‘support the OG version’; I find that quite low.”
In contrast, Alon argues that price performance does not tell the whole story, emphasizing that Pump.fun has its proud grassroots culture and community spirit, suggesting that the rising price of the token on Bonk.fun is more indicative of conspiratorial behavior.
This “war of words” has significantly influenced market sentiment. After Alon’s “OG” statement was released at 00:15, the market value of Pump.fun’s version of $GLONK surged from $7.8 million to $13.4 million, demonstrating its short-term impact on market sentiment.
However, within the following ten hours, the market value of Bonk.fun’s version rebounded to $16.5 million, while Pump.fun’s version dropped to $4.4 million, indicating that the market ultimately favors Bonk.fun’s version.
Earlier, Pump.fun’s official account had even blocked Bonk.fun’s developer Tom, highlighting the escalating competitive atmosphere. Currently, it appears that Bonk.fun’s $GLONK has triumphed, but the victory of a single token may not fully reflect the situation; the competitive advantages of each platform and their user attraction strategies are crucial.
Strategic Alliances and Counterstrikes
Today’s data shows that the number of graduate tokens on Raydium’s LaunchLab (primarily Bonk.fun’s launchpad) has, for the first time, exceeded that on Pump.fun. Although in terms of token creation quantity the former still lags behind Pump.fun, the higher graduation rate reflects that attention and liquidity are gradually being eroded, signaling that Pump.fun’s dominance is indeed facing challenges.
Two days ago, according to external KOL @theunipcs, Bonk.fun developer Tom revealed some key data about LetsBONKfun during a chat:
- 6,911 tokens created within 24 hours, generating fees of 2,880.36 SOL (approximately $500,000 at current prices);
- A total of 26,902 tokens created since the platform’s launch;
- Total fees generated since launch amount to 10,197.83 $SOL (nearly $2 million generated in just two weeks).
Behind this data, the platform’s growth benefits from a creator-centric incentive mechanism:
- On May 4, 2025, the platform partnered with Raydium to provide airdrops of 50,000 RAY to eligible Launchlab and LetsBonk.fun traders to enhance user engagement.
- On May 11, LetsBonk.fun announced a reward of $5,000 for the five tokens that demonstrate “rapid development and sustained growth” over the next week.
- On May 13, Tom increased the reward for the best-performing project of the following week by $15,000.
This resembles the subsidy strategies of various takeaway platforms to attract merchants and users. Under such generous rewards, the platform will also share 10% of the liquidity pool (LP) fees with token creators after migration, which has attracted the developers of FARTCOIN to deploy two tokens—FANGPI and BarkCoin—on Bonk.fun; among them, BarkCoin’s market value reached $826,700 on May 13, bringing broader attention and participation to LetsBonk.fun.
Most interestingly, there is the establishment of connections with the Chinese community. Bonk.fun has developed a series of tools that support the one-click creation of tokens based on content from Chinese social media platforms, integrating narrative elements related to trending topics in China. For instance, the recent rise of “ikun” on Bonk.fun serves as a strong proof, as the meme “Chicken You Too Beautiful” has begun to spread, with ikun’s market value briefly surpassing $12 million.
Who Will Prevail?
As the two major players in the meme token launchpad space within the Solana ecosystem, these two platforms are engaged in a comprehensive competition across technical strength, community support, and market performance.
Bonk.fun has quickly risen with the support of Raydium and the Bonk community, while Pump.fun is fiercely countering through technological innovations and a large user base. Let’s take a closer look at the competitive advantages and highlights of each:
Bonk.fun’s token creation process is also very simple (only three steps: click “Create Token,” enter information, set issuance amount), lowering the user threshold, while Raydium’s CPMM pools provide higher liquidity support for its tokens. Furthermore, Bonk.fun enhances community stickiness through a revenue-sharing mechanism (35% allocated for $BONK buyback and burn), attracting a large number of users interested in the Bonk ecosystem.
As the market leader, Pump.fun has also been consolidating its position through innovation in recent years. In March 2025, Pump.fun launched the PumpSwap platform, offering instant free token migration (previously required 6 SOL) and supporting cross-chain token trading (such as Aptos’s APT).
In early May 2025, Pump.fun introduced a creator revenue-sharing mechanism (0.05% of transaction volume) in an attempt to address the “pump-and-dump” issue through incentives for creators. Although temporarily lagging in the $GLONK battle, Pump.fun still holds a more stable position on the throne with a large user base (peak of 107,000 daily active addresses) and accumulated revenue of $150 million.
If Bonk.fun truly wants to shake Pump.fun’s status, it needs to further expand its user base and innovate technologically, while Pump.fun must address the trust crisis brought by community stickiness and historical negative incidents (like the employee theft incident in 2024).
On another front, for on-chain players, platform competition resembles a form of dividend. Different platforms will inevitably create their wealth effects, whether through conspiracies or communities, increasing the probability of gold dogs appearing; compared to a stagnant market, having gold dogs is better than having none, as it raises expectations of returns.
Moreover, to attract users, platforms will likely introduce more favorable rules or incentive plans, which can be seen as a form of meme-based grooming.
However, the emergence of multiple platforms also makes the already fiercely competitive Trench feel even more crowded, leading to shorter token life cycles and faster entry rhythms, which demand more energy and monitoring.
Chaos is the ladder to ascension; there will always be young people benefiting from the iterations of versions.
This article is collaboratively republished from: Deep Tide