Unchained - How Pump.fun Plans to Beat Social Media Giants and Win Beyond Crypto - Ep.901

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

Pump.fun rocketed to revenue, ran a blockbuster token sale, and then hit turbulence: rivals took share, the token slid, bots spammed launches, and critics cried “casino.”  Now the team is fighting back with a dynamic creator-fee model, a liquidity foundation for cult communities, and an unapologetic push into live streaming and mobile. In this episode, co-founder Noah Tweedale lays out how Project Ascend aims to align creators and communities, why buybacks aren’t a long-term business model, what they’re doing about bots and user losses, and how Pump plans to compete not just with crypto apps, but with YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok.  It’s a candid look at whether a crypto product can become a mainstream platform. Thank you to our sponsor ⁠Token2049⁠! Get 15% off with the code UNCHAINED Guest: Noah Tweedale, Co-founder of Pump.fun Timestamps: 🎬 0:00 Intro ⚡ 2:09 Why the past few months have been so turbulent for Pump 💸 4:47 How the new dynamic fee model works for creators 🔍 9:40 How Pump’s discovery algorithm surfaces tokens ♻️ 10:45 Will Pump’s buybacks become programmatic? 🐶 15:33 Why LetsBonk was able to grab so much market share ⚔️ 18:20 Whether Noah sees Zora as a competitor 🌍 20:09 Why Noah wants to build a world-changing app, not chase small wins 👥 25:02 Whether Pump is prioritizing specific demographics 🔧 27:14 What the team is focused on improving in the app 🔗 30:32 How Pump is building interoperability with the broader crypto ecosystem 🤖 32:21 What the team is doing about bots launching tokens 💔 34:48 Whether they’re worried about so many users losing money 🛡️ 36:15 Why Noah doesn’t see apps like Zora or Believe as real competitors 📱 38:38 How mobile usage differs from desktop on Pump ⚖️ 40:03 How Pump approaches regulation and compliance 🎲 41:02 Why Noah insists Pump is not gambling, it’s trading 🎥 42:49 The strategies to compete with YouTube and Twitch 🌐 48:30 How Pump fits into a world with a widening wealth gap 🎰 53:29 How Noah responds to critics calling Pump a casino 🗺️ 57:56 Why Noah says roadmaps are a fallacy 🛠️ 59:41 Whether Pump will evolve into an “everything app” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As I'm sure you're very well aware, a lot of people criticize pump fun and like similar platforms saying it's gambling or it's the mean coin casino. And I wondered what your response is to those critics. I know, just like have a higher IQ, I guess. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Unchained. You're no hyper resource for all things crypto. I'm your host, Laura Shin. This is the September 11th, 2025 episode of Unchained. The crypto world is buzzing. On October 1st and 2nd, 25,000 people will be at Token 2049 Singapore, the largest crypto event in the world, featuring headline speakers like Eric Trump, Vlad Tenev, Tom Lee, Bologi Sreeny Vassin, and Arthur Hayes.

Visit asia.tokin249.com now to get 15% off tickets with the code unchained. Today's guest is Noah Tweedale, co-founder of Pump Fun. Welcome, Noah. Hey, how's it going? I'm really good. I'm so excited to chat with you. guys. Pump fund is clearly one of the biggest crypto successes in the last couple years. It's become one of the fastest companies to reach not only profitability, but also rake in huge amounts of revenue. You recently cost $840 million in revenue. Your company also recently raised $1.2 billion in an ICO. You have even bigger ambitions to compete with social media giants.

But I want to talk about like the kind of the recent period because, you know, it's like not only have you had this wild ride the last couple years, but it's like been sort of condensed this summer, I would say, with multiple ups and downs. You know, obviously this ICO sold out quickly at the same time the platform was like losing market share and then got overtaken by let's bonk. Then the token kind of dropped precipitously, but then recently pump has now flipped. let's balk again to regain the majority of market share. Now more than 80% of coins in Solana are being minted on Pump Fund again. And it feels like you're kind of on this upward trajectory. You've made a bunch of new announcements. So I was just curious, like, how are you feeling at this moment in time?

Like, what are your general thoughts on everything that's happened? I mean, that's a cool question. Because I think, like, I mean, obviously the past sort of couple months were sort of pretty crazy, I guess, from the outside perspective. But, I mean, this company now, I mean, has been alive. existed since even before sort of 2023, right? So we've had a humongous amount of sort of ups and downs, like

really sort of like all the way down, like this is completely over, like this company's going to shut down. So sort of, this is doing sort of super well and then this will continue sort of pushing it out. So I think it was, from the outside, I know it sounds seemed sort of very extreme, but sort of internally it was like, I'm going to say like two cratesias, just like a normal day,

but it almost was. It was just like, yeah, this is just like the next sort of chaotic thing, which is sort of hitting us. But I mean, that itself was like it was a pretty unique scenario right because the whole um obviously the development team which we have had to build out build out this whole sort of ICO platform for the for sort of pump fun and that took a lot of time right and i mean as you can see sort of during the whole iCO process our sort of system was the only one which sort of unhelpable of everything going on um so that that was super busy to sort of um sort of working on that but it was uh it was

point I'm trying to get at, like the two-week period before this was happening was obviously extremely chaotic and sort of full-on sort of heads down to make sure there was sort of no mistakes. And quite literally the whole sort of development company was very much focused on getting this over the line, right? So that's when the whole sort of dog thing sort of happened. And we were sort of very much just focused on a different thing. And then once sort of- By dog, you just, you mean let's bonk? Yeah, correct. Yeah. And then, so we're on sort of there.

And then obviously the sort of token launches. And I mean, I'll just be honest here, like myself, Alon and Dylan, the sort of three founders, like we hadn't had a holiday in literally like one and a half years. Like we were working sort of seven days a week. We still are. But we told ourselves like, no matter what happens after this token launch, let's just take like a week or something off to sort of like, just like relax a bit. So that's what we did. And I think that's when the whole sort of like chaos sort of, chaos sort of went down. But then we sort of, as soon as we went back in the office, we were like, okay, let's just like execute.

you on this plan and then sort of get it over the line. So, oh, okay. So during that period when people were like, they raised all this money, but there's no communication. You guys were actually on yeah, pretty much. Yeah. I mean, obviously, like, there was like calls going on like, oh, we should do something, which we were. But again, like, we did just want to sort of take a bit of a break because, like, I can't explain, like, the sort of craziness, which has sort of happened in our lives over this sort of past sort of two to three year period. So, yeah, no, I'm sure. I mean, just looking at it from the outside, it's very obvious. Well, let's talk about some of the recent announcements.

You know, you just announced Project Descend, which at least from the announcement, it seemed like there's going to be multiple parts to it. But the overall goal is to make projects in their communities more aligned. But let's talk about the dynamic fee model, which was, I think, you know, one of the main pieces of that. So you just out, you know, launch this dynamic fees v1. And it's this tiered creator fee structure on pump swap, you know, where the tiers are in market cap. and the higher market cap coins have this lower creator fee. So, like, describe a little bit more, like, the problems that you're seeing that you were trying to solve with this new structure.

Yeah. So, I mean, I think that sort of goes down as sort of a deeper, deeper question, which I want to answer is, like, pump fun is we don't want, I mean, okay, look, it's obviously a crypto company right now. But our long term ambitions for this company is we don't want to, we don't want to be a crypto company. And I think we sort of made that clear in our sort of, sort of announcement. I mean, we do obviously want to cates towards the sort of crypto native users and sort of continue. you're growing that out and everything, but we want to become a company which has an impact globally, right, either through via sort of financial means or through sort of social means, which is really what we're sort of working on. And if you look at the sort of leading social media platforms of

today, like Instagram, Twitter, I mean, Twitch, I guess you could arguably or say as like a social platform, TikTok, all that sort of stuff is these, all these sort of platforms work for sort of one main reason. And that's they, that's because they reward the creators, right? And they reward the creators to continue to sort of produce content, just like YouTube as well. And our thesis was always to, to, to win this game or to win, like, globally with the best possible product. You have to build a product which is not just like 2x better, 3x better, but like 100x better. And that was the idea with these sort of creator fees that we would heavily, heavily

incentivize sort of content creators on the platform to, one, to start creating content in general and then to be rewarded for it a lot more, a lot more than any well. And I think it's been really interesting to see, like, just the statistics that I've been sort of looking at over the past couple days. Like streaming has sort of gone through the roof, like DMs, which is obviously prevalent on the mobile app. Also sort of just like going up and like a sort of a direct line upwards. I think it sort of speaks. Like, again, like if you actually go on Pump Fun right now and you look at some of these streamers, like I was looking at past whole days, people who have been streaming for like 12 minutes and have made like $150, right?

Which like that isn't that much. But if you think about it, like this is with like 10. viewers, 15 viewers, and this money is just sort of flowing in. And this is like, I believe, quite literally like a 100x better product than what's sort of out there in this sort of traditional sort of world, if that makes sense. So yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, so I don't know what those, you know, particular streamers were streaming about, but like most entry level jobs are not going to pay you $150 for 12 minutes of work. So. Yeah. And again, these are just like streams just like, even just talking, nothing like too crazy. And I thought it was, it was really cool to see.

especially when like the, so it takes time to create like quality content created, like the content creators like Mr. Beasts and all these sort of famous people. Like they need like time to nourish and obviously start making money to go to reinvest into their businesses. And I think as time goes on, I think hopefully we'll see larger and larger content creators having more and more of like an impact basically. Yeah. So basically it's like you're trying to give enough of a financial incentive that like people

who are unknown have a chance to like keep going to try to break through. for sure i mean it's it's it's it's so it's so it's it's not only that right because if you if you become an instagram content creator now like how many how many users does instagram have like like billions right so even if you get like 10 000 followers on instagram it's like you make no money like it's super super hard to make money or to like or to be able to generate any revenue so one we obviously want to want to allow our content creators to be able to get increased sort of cash so they can sustain themselves and create bigger sort of brands but two and almost more importantly Well, I think it's so special I pump on what I really love about it is, is that the discoverability

is that is that much better as all. Because there's sort of net less streamers, it's actually way more likely to be sort of seen because you're sort of cramming these like whatever, like 300, 400, 400, 500 concurrent streamers to the sort of crypto audience, which is sort of $5 million. So the sort of chance to fame or chance of success is a lot higher than all these other platforms. And obviously, as the platform grows and network effects get bigger, then this, this becomes more and more difficult to attain. But I almost think like right now, it's like the golden age should be able to sort of create something and then, and so it's kind of like, like Instagram at the start when everyone was sort of loving it, people were able to make a bunch of money or

the way sort of Tinder was said like, oh, the start when Tinder used, everyone was able to sort of get matches, right? But now it's turned into this sort of hypercapitalistic sort of way of just like getting you to spend money on sort of in that purchases instead of creating like something which actually works, right? So, yeah. Well, so I was curious then, yeah, because like when I go on the front page, like I am, I'm honestly, and granted, I know I'm not your target. audience. But like I was just wondering, like, yeah, this discoverability notion or like how your algorithm works or whatever. Like when I go on there, I'm just looking at all these things. And like some of the streams I went in, it's literally like a guy on a call like selling something. And so

I'm like, wait, like, why would I be watching this? Or like, how are you choosing what goes up there? Or like, yeah, just talk a little bit about like how you think people can get discovered. And yeah. Yeah. So I mean, with the light, so the main sort of discovery algorithm is probably on the front page for the coins. Like for the discovery, uh, the algorithm for the, uh, the algorithm for the live streams, it's actually not existing right now. It's purely sorted by market cap. So there hasn't been much resources sort of sort of diverted into that. If that makes sense. But again, like our thesis is and I think this is sort of followed is, the better your stream is, the more attention it gets. The more attention your stream gets, the more the higher the market

cap is. And I think that's how that's how kind of like crypto works in general, right? And I think this is sort of going to continue over of how this whole new sort of social financial layer is going to work out. Okay. So you've also at this point done $75 million so far in buybacks. This is something that obviously the community has been excited about. You know, there is a fair amount of talk, though, about how these buybacks are discretionary so far, rather than like something programmatic or like something where, you know,

there's kind of like a set, yeah, program around it and literally also just not manual. So do you intend to make them programmatic? And again, this is like a broader question. I mean, if you look at the sort of space right now, what bybaks are actually programmatic? Again, I correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'm actually not sure if the hyperliquid buybacks are programmatic, like a lot of people like to insinuate. I'm pretty sure if those would want to be changed, they could be changed very quickly.

So that's the first thing he needs to sort of assess. And I think the way we sort of make, we made a decision about the bybax or Pummey's decision about the Vibaxes, we sort of look. to sort of crypto and see what are the sort of successful, successful companies out there, right? You have like finance, which obviously did like, again, I believe it was like 50% buybacks, like 50% of their fees were being used to directly buyback the B&B token for the first, I think, believe at least a couple years of sort of development. And then sort of hyperliquid, which sort of executed directly 100% of the way with these 100%

buybacks, which I think kind of makes sense. But again, like I think like, yeah, like the way I like to see it is we see one has worked and we think that makes a lot of sense. But I can only comment about the past, which is we've done, I mean, the start, obviously the buybacks started with 25%, and then the decision was made to sort of change that to 100% buybacks. And I think Pump looks up to the sort of biggest companies in crypto and wants to fall in their lead. And I'm sorry, when you say 100% you're talking about of the revenue? Of the revenue, correct, of the revenue. Okay. Yeah. And like, this is like a really funny thing to me because, you know, just if you think about it,

you raised all this money. And when you did that, you sold people this token. So like, they basically paid you money for the token. But then now you are using money to then buy this thing that you sold back to them. But I guess it's, I mean, it's just like, maybe just it's the fact that this happened like in such a short period. So it's just like a funny thing. Well, I mean, again, addressing this as a whole, I think it's like, like, arguably like, it's a, it's like, it's not a wise business decision to buy to buy to buybacks, either for, for pump fund, for hyperliquid, for finance, or any of the centralised exchange. Like this is like a very flawed ideology, which somehow crypto has sort of sort of pushed

towards the front. Like this, imagine this would be like Amazon paying a sort of 20% dividend, like 100% dividend the year with all revenue generated since their inception, right? There's no way these companies will be able to hit this sort of global scale by sort of giving this much back to sort of, I guess, all the all the shareholders of it, not that like the current sort of crypto stuff looks like that, especially the pump fund token. But I mean, again, I think it's just like it's seeing what works in crypto and people, I think the truth is there's like a lot of sort of misconceptions or problems which come around

from sort of the equity and sort of token split and how these companies are sort of set up. So it's important to, yeah, like show belief and show and like demonstrate that if people, the people buying into stuff is that there is potential value there, or there is at least there is a possibility for buy. actually happened in the past. Okay. Yeah. So you feel like it's like a particular problem in crypto. Maybe it doesn't, you know, super makes sense. But it does, I guess, in terms of like community alignment. But I do understand, like it creates. I mean, think about it. For every dollar which is spent on a buyback, obviously it does, it does make sense. It depending on

what kind of stakeholder you are. But this, this, that money could be used on marketing. It could be used on acquisitions. It could be used on hiring. It could be used on or bonuses or all kinds of different things which would arguably allow the company to grow, sort of grow longer and larger in the sort of long term. But then looking at it in sort of more detail again, I think obviously where Pump Fund is in quite a unique situation where it already has quite a large amount of capital. So that's very much up to them how they sort of allocate the, their sort of resources. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, because like another issue, would be just like from a diversification perspective. It's sort of like FTT, FTCX. But I understand like

there there is a certain crypto thing of like everybody being aligned on the same page. So I understand how it feeds that narrative. Let's talk about Let's Bonk situation a little bit more. Like why do you think it is that LetzBonk was able to take so much of Pump Fund's thunder for a few months? Again, again, there's like this whole dog thing. Like it's happened like so many times before, right? If you look through our pump fund's history, you've had stuff like, I mean, at the very start, you had Dex Greener launching a pump fund competitor. Then you had Justin's son launching a pump fund competitor. Then you had, I'm just thinking about all these different attempts, which have sort of been made.

I mean, Jupiter's obviously done one now. And the dog guys have done one. Then, I mean, again, this is like, and of course, CZ as well, they tried on sort of the B&B chain with, with their sort of one. And they've done all these sort of large. And the same thing always happens, right? Like these competitors come up, they use massive amount of incentives to make their users make more money simply because they're buying these tokens. A bunch of, obviously, traders who are very accustomed to the sort of financial markets go over because they know they can make more money.

And then it sort of goes, like the market share goes directly back down again as soon as the incentives run out, which they always do. And again, like, that's why I think it speaks about a pump. Like, we're not like a partnerships driven company or we're not like a company which is driven by just like trying to, quite literally like manipulate the market in this sense or acting in like a really bad faith, which can come at the cost of the end users as well. We're here to, it's a product first company, right? Because at the end of the day, the product always wins, right? Like if you have like, I mean, if you look at, I mean, again, this is like a kind

very simplistic way of looking at it, but just looking at the UI on pump or just like the features, like a live streaming or the mobile app with the DMs, with the, with the move list have, with all this different stuff, which not a single other sort of product has. This doesn't seem like a lot because it's not like, oh, wow, like it's a one stop one so everyone uses this one thing. But it's more like if there's like a 1% edge from coming from all these different little causes,

this sort of stacks up, right? And this leads the product to be better in the end, getting the user over in the long term. With this sort of stuff and competitors in general, I always refer back to the product, and the best product always wins. And this isn't in crypto. Like this is worldwide, right?

Your product has to be substantially better to win. And the everyday, like, we're the devco here. Like, we're thinking of like, how do we sort of structure this in a way, which is the best possible product for the end user in every single way. And all this sort of other stuff is just, it's just sort of noise to us. And even like, obviously we did lose some market share.

Like obviously it would be like, oh, yeah, but we realize like this isn't, this isn't the end game. It's like we've just had this happen like literally 10 plus times at this point. So let's just go back at it and build a better product. And that's the only thing which matters. And again, I think honestly, it was, as mentioned before, it was just like a lack of focus in that short time period. Because just because of like the high stress environment of the token launch.

Yeah. I mean, like, it sort of feels like it might have been more visible in a way because you had launched the token at that time as well. So it was just like so much attention on you guys, like even more than normal. And then like a market price. So. But I did, you know, want to ask because I'm also noticing like I think Zora now is having like there's more like coin creation on base than Salana recently. And I wonder, do you think of them as a competitor? Again, no, no, not really.

I mean, I think, look, I think I like the Zora team. I think they've actually created something pretty cool just because of like this sort of overarching narrative, which I think like, or not even narrative, like, for me, what I want to do here is create a company which can work high started crypto. And if you look at Zora and you open their mobile app, you see something quite special, right? Because they're not catering towards the sort of the sort of average crypto user of charts and all this stuff. They're building something for, for the InSome creative, like the normy, for the normy sort of generational, the normal user base. we can actually use it. So I think that that's quite cool. I'm not sure about that strategy. I mean, again, like, obviously they, they don't make too much revenue compared to us, right? So I think that does speak for

the barriers. I think everyone here is going to take a different path, right? And I think it's just like sort of having conviction your path and sort of falling through on it. Like I think our, our sort of vision or where we sort of execute this is, you focus very much on the user, you're your user obsessed, right? You really understand everything what the user wants. Like you speak to users every day. You like, you dig out of them like, what are your problems? Like, what, what, you want, like, what were you understanding this? And I think it's risky. And we've made this mistake before is if we try and build like five years ahead for what the user is going to

look like in five years, you almost forget about your current user. And that can cause like the whole thing to sort of almost collapse or it's not work at all and just lose. Right. So the trick here is about user obsession, but about users which are currently using the platform and not ones which are going to be using it in a couple years time. So even faster than Let's Bunk flipped pump fun recently took the top spot again. nearly overnight. This happened in August. And I wondered, you know, how did you guys manage to win back that market share? Yeah. So honestly, like, I don't really want to, like, this is for me, this isn't like a relevant, this isn't like a top of mind issue for me right now. Like,

I don't, I don't see this as being like something. One, I should like, we should spend time discussing or we should sort of just like address as a whole. I think like if you're worried about this, if you're listening to this and you're worried about sort of Pumpfons market share, one, I would just ask, look at the past, look what's happened in the history, and then just believe in the team's executionability to sort of retake that. What I want to focus on is not like, oh, how does one market share take the other market share, who's got this sort of dominant space? It's more so how does this company move already in like this, in a sort of niche industry we are, and how do we sort of leave that? And I think that's like the overarching question because all this sort of like market share debates and oh, I can get my revenue up to like $3 million dollars a day, $5 million a day. like that, to me, that's not a success.

Like, that's not, that's not what, that's not what we're here for. And that's what anyone are working at the sort of pump fund development co is either. Like, we, everyone here, like, working with us, we want to create a company which, which can have, like a, which can have an impact which hasn't been seen before in crypto, right? And I think if you look at these companies, even at the largest ones, like sort of Coinbase and sort of finance and obviously sort of Oakhs and all these centralized exchanges and then the largest decentralized exchanges. For me, these companies are all failures.

Like, I don't think a single one of the. really really has like an impact globally, which makes a difference, right? Like you look at this, you look at sort of Coinbase, for example, like they built a Bitcoin wallet. That's all they did. Like the product hasn't really changed since sort of day one. And I think when looking at like a success case, you should be looking at companies which which really truly like generationally change the world. You look at like Apple, you look at sort of all these sort of different social media stuff, which like every single person is using like hours upon hours a day or you with your, maybe your laptop, which you're using now,

watching this podcast on or your iPhone, you're watching this podcast on, you want to look at companies like that. And I just really want to stay away from this whole sort of crypto stuff because, like, again, it's nice to look into it. And it obviously sort of helps of like moving the needle on small numbers. But like, we're super young. Like I'm 21 years old and my co-founder's also 21 and so 22, 23. I think like we want to be working on this for like decades to come and really have like an impact. So our thought, and this is so has been since the start of like, Like, we didn't even set out to, like, create this to be, uh, found like a crypto-native company. It was more so like, how do we just create a company, which has like a global impact.

And that's really what I want to stress on and not like, oh, are we going to build another decentralized perpetual futures exchange? Are we going to build like another, uh, stable point and all this other stuff? Which like, obviously we're going to do, right? Because I was like, why would you not do this if you have a good product? But the question should be, how can you like change the world? And I think that's really what we're focused on. So, yeah.

Well, you know, I, so actually when I asked that question, I was sort of thinking, like so clearly you guys are working on two different time scales here you have you know kind of your vision for the future you have like you know your goal to take on Twitch and TikTok and YouTube like you know what you said before in your announcement and yet at the same time you just said like you're also you know wanting to make sure that you're in touch with the your users today of course so like really so really when I asked a question it was more like about that like about because you are kind of managing like two different things you're managing your current audience or your current user and you want to, you know, keep them and, like, you know, grow

with them. So, so I don't know. Like, you know, I did notice. To give some more background, like the company is very much sort of like, I want to say split apart, but there's like two, two sort of verticals. One is like the, this is like the future facing stuff. Like what is going to lead this market to like, how do we grow this market? How do we turn this into something special? And that's like stuff like obviously are live streaming. Like obviously the sort of DM stuff, which is that built directly into the mobile app, which. sort of like no one has sort of redone in crypto except to be telegram before. And then you have stuff like the mobile app in general, which I think is quite amazing, right?

Because with a mobile app, you get like this, this K factor, which is substantially higher than anything else. Right. Like if you're just like, I don't know, just like hanging around with friends or like you're in the subway or whatever, and you have your sort of mobile app and you're using something. Like if you think about the best products in history, like sort of Netflix and like Amazon, like all this sort of stuff. All this sort of stuff. But you didn't hear about it because of marketing. You hear it because your, like your mom told you, your brother told you, your friends told you, right? And I think that's really what we're sort of optimizing for here is like, and the focus of that side of the company essentially is like how you make a product as viral as possible and it's sort of easy to spread by world of mouth.

And you obviously have the other side of things of sort of retaining the current user base and sort of looking after them and executing on them. But again, like that, I think like, I don't want to say it's easy because obviously there are some challenges which sort of come with that. But, like, I mean, we've done it in the past, the past year and a half, and I have like 100% conviction. We're going to be able to continue doing this. Like, for me, for me, that isn't like the challenge. For me, I think it's a challenge, but it's not an interesting one. And I think the real challenge should be like, again, how do you grow this market out to serious size? And out of curiosity, because this question has come up before, like, in the world of NFTs in particular,

like, do you prioritize one of these demographics over the other? Like, do you prioritize creators? or do you prioritize traders? Or how do you segment your user base and who do you think? There's no such thing as like prioritization. I mean, if you look at it like, if you look at like current social media platforms, it's like, oh, do you like TikTok prioritizes sort of content creators or the sort of consumers? And I think the honest answer is it's like it's not very clear.

And what kind of combines them together is the algorithm. That's that's a beautiful thing. Like the algorithm sort of mushes both the sort of the consumer. and the sort of content creator and sort of creates the sort of market, which, which, which intertwines both of them. So I think it's like, and this is like, this is like the most difficult question of them all, right? Like, how do you, how do you create this sort of two-sided marketplace of the sort of crypto natives and then the sort of forward-looking like, mixture between sort of Robin Hood, Twitch and TikTok and sort of pump fun as I is today?

And I think it's like, this is not a problem which you can solve of sort of one button. This is a problem you solve by taking sort of rapid, small iterative changes, which like over time make the product like one percent better. every day. Okay. So in a moment, we'll talk a little bit more about Pump Fund's future plans, but first a quick word from the sponsors to make the show possible. Eric Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., Tom Lee, Vlad Tenive, Paolo Ardoino, Balji Srinivassin, Arthur Hayes. These are just some of the headliners at Token 2049 Singapore, the largest crypto event in the world, happening October 1st and 2nd. Over 25,000 attendees, 500 exhibitors, and 300 speakers will converge for an unmissable week.

Token 2049 will take over all five floors of Marina Bayes Sands, transforming it into a pop-up city with 1,000 side events, nonstop networking, and immersive experiences, all leading into the Formula One Grand Prix weekend. Ticket prices are rising this week. Visit Asia.tokin249.com and use code. unchained for 15% off tickets. Back to my conversation with Noah. So I actually wanted to return back to this project to send bit because I know you just announced that little piece of it, but I was curious like, what do you feel are kind of the major issues, you know, that pump fund has now that you would like to, you know, tweak and improve on? Tweet. Any major issues? I would say discoverability, like finding the best possible coins. and always being able to sort of navigate the site

either on your sort of mobile app which you're using or on the sort of website. For me, that's sort of super important. I feel like that that's like a big thing. And then what else? I mean, obviously like the... I mean, no, I think that's kind of like a feature of the product, right? I mean, like, I presume like this is going to lead into something.

So what do you want to sort of hear? No, no, no. I am curious to hear like what do you... I mean, I do have a bunch of things that people have mentioned, but I wondered how you think about it. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think that the big thing, like, it's like you have to sort of split the sort of what does the user want and then what is a business slash the overarching company want. And I think at the end of the day, like, it's important to know that these are the same things, right? But he's connected.

Like if you look after your customer, the sort of the company perform as well, right? Like even if the business is operating at a loss or just like sort of stangling isn't really moving, if your customers are happy, you'll sort of win in the end game. Like the customer is always the most important thing. So, I mean, when we, again, like, we speak to users, everyone in the team. And, like, the founders, we speak to users a lot. So whenever we hear, when we sort of listen to users, like, we hear their problems. And those are the first things we sort of want to fix. So, yeah, if you have anything specific, then we're more than happy to address that here.

Yeah. I mean, like, I feel like the community takeover bit was, like, kind of a first step. And then now, you know, the way that you change the fee structure, like, is, like, basically what you, it seems to me, like, what you were trying to incentivize. is that you want people to not just do, like, the rugpools, just like, you know, a get rich quick scheme, but like to actually create something that's more long-lasting and that also has like a big community around it. Is that kind of a way to think about it? I mean, of course. Yeah, of course. Like you want coins to perform extraordinarily well, right? That's like that's the best possible case for everyone, right? Like the, obviously the platform does well.

And then the users who, who bought into these coins obviously sort of benefit. And it becomes like a, like a global success. So obviously we had like a bunch of these, different coins which sort of performed very well during sort of different like large sort of world events basically, right? And I think that that sort of shows the sort of merit of like these large communities getting together and these coins quite literally having like an impact on the in sort of general. So yeah, I mean, obviously the larger coin, a lot of the coins, the better the coins do, the, the cooler it is. And then the CTO thing, I mean, the idea here really was was just to give optionality, right? Like if a developer leaves his coin and no longer works on it, like, and a whole new community is coming in and really trying to support it and work on it,

then we want to give them the tools to be able to sort of, sort of like, take over that coin. But the truth is like here as well, it's like, this is not, this is by no means to solve problem. And for all the users listening to this, like, we're working on this. And again, just like every other like angle of the product, like this is just like iterative improvements. And it's like this, we like obviously listen to suggestions and sort of try and try and like

gorge it out and see what makes sense to sort of either make it and try and make it a better, better product at the end of it. So another, you know, kind of analysis that I've seen is that one of the issues that Pump Fund should probably try to solve for is that, you know, a certain portion of token discovery or like a meaningful portion is happening, you know, with bots or on, you know, wallet token feeds or a deck screener, like basically not on Pump Fund's, you know, homepage or in its app. And I wondered, you know, what you were trying to do to bring more attention to Pump Fund itself. I mean, yeah, I think it's like there's obviously some portion

which is happening off the sort of front end. But I think that's like, that's almost beautiful in itself, right? Like I, and that's like a really cool thing about pump. Because if you look at stuff like, like these other sort of enclosed ecosystems of sort of Twitter and like, I mean, yeah, again, like Instagram, Snapchat, all that sort of stuff, is like you can't really see it on sort of multiple different different sort of plan, angles on different side of things. So pump is obviously one, like a, you use it, you can trade on it on its front end and

sort of consume its content. And again, there's obviously significant. significant usage on the mobile app and the on the sort of front end such and so forth. But I think it's also infrastructure, right? I think that's really beautiful about it as well. Like you have like Maxi who pump worked with, which allows like pump funds to be sort traded indirectly or like all these trading terminals and all these centralized exchanges which I know are coming out with like these new terminals, like it becomes infrastructure.

And the nice thing about this is kind of like hyper liquid, right? Every time a new sort of platform is built on top of it, it adds to the network effects, right? because if someone launched a coin on pump, then it's seen on all these different venues simultaneously. And I think that's almost the beauty of crypto as a whole is everything is so interoperable and sort of built on one another. It's no longer this sort of siloed-off ecosystem of sort of Web2, which I think comes with its sort of blessings and a lot of curses.

But I think in our case, I think it's almost like a feature-in-off bug. I also saw, so back in July, Coinbase Director Connor Grogan tweeted, quote, the great majority of tokens launched in Pump Fund and Let's Bunk are today run by bots. The top accounts launch on average, a new token every three minutes. You know, when I was reading that, I was just thinking, like, this reminds me of how on crypto Twitter now, there's like so many bots that are just adding like. I mean, yeah, it's natural, right? As soon as as a group of individuals or real human beings who are sort of working together

or using a product, like bots come along. I think the real thing, and I've said this before, I believe you in publicly, the one thing you want to focus is like obviously if people like buying to bots and they get like hurt, that's not the same as like if you buy in like if you're on Twitter and you're sort of seeing bots which are sort of spreading misinformation. It's obviously like a very, very bad thing. You want to avoid. But the trick here is not to sort of go into this sort of fight with the bots because you'll never win that. Like not even like all these are large tech companies with like hundreds of thousands of employees can fix this problem. So that what you really need to lean into is

you need to give the tools to your users to identify is this a bot or is this not a bot? And that that's a real trick. So it's about sort of tooling and discoverability, which kind of leans back into this sort of algorithm, which can allow this to sort of grow out, right? So I think that's the thing you've got to prioritize and really looking after the users. So, yeah. Okay. So you don't, you don't feel like that's something that is necessary. Again, like all content is good content to the extent where it doesn't hurt or damage, damage sort of users, right? Like the, the truth is like the, the, even a bot can create something funny or or individualistic or or something which can go viral, right?

Like a lot of memes are like at this point, like, I mean, half the world is AI generated, right? So I think, and this is only gonna continue as time goes on. So it's not something you can just like stop with the sort of snap of your fingers. You really have to think about this on like, take a step back, like how do you solve this problem?

And if the, if the user who's trading, who doesn't wanna trade bot coins, then you gotta help them not trade bot coins, right? Then their algorithm has to give them suggestions in a way where they don't trade, they don't trade bot coins any longer. And that's what we really sort of, sort of focusing on. Because again, like trying to like individually sort of ban these

botcordings or sort of stop them from getting distribution, it's really hard to do because obviously there's, with a product like ours, there's sort of, there is money on the line, right? So if the other parties can take sort of actions and you sort of get into this sort of like kind of a battle with them, but it doesn't really make sense. You should be building a service which can allow every single user to identify what kind of stuff they want to buy into. So, yeah. And, you know, a lot has been made about how the majority of people lose money on meme points and on pump, you know, I think the recent status I saw it was about 60%.

So do you feel like that's a problem you need to solve? Or do you just feel like that is like a function of... Yeah, for sure. I mean, we don't, we don't want people to lose money. I think that's like a... It's like, obviously, like, that's bad for us. If you lose money, that's like, that's like not a good thing, right? That that's like, we definitely don't want that to happen.

But I mean, again, I think people also need to take this in context. Like, I reckon if you take the sort of win-lost ratio of sort of pump and one, place it over perpetual futures, perpetual futures will be one. 100% worse. Like I guarantee that. And then two, just take the win loss sort of percentage of just like taking it on like all like top 100 tokens and spot trading. I'm pretty sure like your odds will be worse there as well. And that's like for many different reasons. Right. Like you have like all these like founders doing all these very weird stuff, which I've sort of heard and sort of see instead of firsthand. And you have so all these sort of all these VCs who are sort of invests into as well. And I think the beauty about pump and really while you sort of built this out was because we got frustrated like you sort of like a year ago like you were buying these coins. And it was like. like, probably 50 people you've never even heard of or were so hidden away and so obfuscated who were selling your tokens that it would, like, hurt you. And with Pump, like, you know, what you're buying into, right? Like, you're buying into whatever X coin. And yeah, you enjoy it. And I think that, you know, enjoy it. But like, it's like, it's not lying to you what it is.

And I think that's almost beautiful. And I really enjoy that. So let's talk for a moment about the crypto competition. Again, I know we sort of addressed it. but I want to address it from a different angle, which is I just wanted to hear how you think of Pump Fund versus some of the different crypto competitors, you know, and we don't have to talk about it. Let's talk about you don't want to, but, you know, I mentioned Zora.

You said, like, they're going after Normies. Like, what about Believe? Like, you know, I just wanted you to hear, I wanted to hear you talk about what niche pump fund is trying to carve out, like, what the identity is that you're going after. I don't see these companies as, as competitors. Like, they obviously, like, they come in, like they get like a bit of a hype cycle and they sort of go down again.

Like that's a competitor to someone who come in and sort of maintain significant market share for sort of months or if not years on end. Like that hasn't happened yet. So I really don't consider it. Like our competition I see as like the largest companies in crypto and beyond. Like I think it's like that that's who we're really competing against, right? Like the amount of the amount of money which Pump is making is equatable, I would say, to some of the largest centralized exchanges on the planet right now.

Right. Like I think I believe pump even had like a more profitable quarter than quotes. base and stuff like that. And that really sort of starts like, like, if you like, if you start like sort of seeing what's sort of going on and like, I mean, obviously, finance they're like, they're like a division of their own. But then you look look at the smaller ones like they get next C, Q coin, Krakken, like I don't know. I obviously don't know their internal financial records, but I would probably bet money on the fact that pump fund is generating more more revenue than them. Right. And I think that really sort of, that's pretty interesting, especially when like

the development company only has like 65 employees, 66, 6.6. It depends. I think if you resources to see what's going on. I think that's sort of quite special. So like this sort of smaller stuff, which like takes like a couple of present of market share or a couple decimal points of like market share, the every here and now again is like not what not what you should be focusing on as like an investor. And if you're looking at pump or or a user, you should be thinking of like, wow, how does this company go from here to like making, how does pump go from making $2 million a day to $20 million a day to $50 million a day? And I think that's always like our framing of how the product was iterated. It's not like, oh, how do we increase our money?

margins by like 10% or how do we increase their margins by 5%. It's like, how do we create a product which can spread by itself and get to like 10x really are, 100x really are. And it's always about like, how do you figure out the next 10x and not how do you just sort of try and squeeze out a bit more money from your current users. So yeah. So I also wanted to ask about your mobile app, which you launched back in the winter. I was curious how you've seen activity there differ from on desktop and also what the

breakout is in terms of percentage of activity on each. For sure. Yeah. So I mean, the biggest thing is like retention. Like once you're on mobile, like your attention is substantially higher, right? Because it's like it's like your own little enclosed ecosystem. And it acts like a wallet, like a trading sort of partner and like almost like a social application as well. So that thing was sort of super excited about like the, like the spread like the likelihood that someone shares the mobile app is also is also higher. I believe. I wouldn't sort of want to sort of put my bed on. Like I want to put my brand behind. that I just have to double check if that's correct. But then I believe, like, for sort of front-end usage, again, I don't have the statistics in front of me. I believe it's like 25%. So actually something very substantial. Like a lot of our development now is going into the, going into the mobile app because it's like, we feel like desktop is kind of like a losing battle.

Like everyone's doing desktop, right? Like all these like larger companies, I mean, just why I'm we see as like a company, but like all these like larger sort of, larger sort of like platforms, like all these centralized exchanges, like a lot of this stuff like Coinbase, a lot of it is like, especially when a lot of money is involved is all on desktop. And I think that's a problem because it inherently limits growth for the company. I think mobile really allows you to go get that sort of stratospheric upside, which we're really looking for. So yeah. Okay. And I was curious, so the UK's financial conduct authority said pump doesn't have permission to do business there. In general, there's, you know, some different

laws around gambling, online casinos. They could potentially apply to pump depending on the jurisdiction. And I wondered how you were thinking about that, like strategically or just, you know. It's top of mind, right? Like we have like a massive legal team. I work with a bunch of different annual councils, obviously our internal legal team as well. And like, yeah, you want to be on top of this. And you want to make sure you're breaking absolutely no regulations. And if there is like a, like a disroom, you sort of fix that as soon as possible.

And I think that's really important, right? Because like it doesn't make any sense to run your business in a way where you get in trouble or have all these sort of run-ins. Because like that damage is a product long term, right? and it damages the business long term, and it hurts your reputation. So I think, like, you mentioned the gap, like, we're actively looking into this stuff. And like, whenever we see a problem, like, we'll change it or address it or make sure that doesn't happen again. So, yeah. So, you know, on a related note, Twitch band unlicensed gambling sites.

And that kind of gave like an opening to a live streaming platform kick. And that's owned by stake, which is an online casino. And Kick is home to a number of gambling streamers. and it sort of feels like, you know, I mean, you have been bringing on other streamers from KIC actually. Like, Soljiki is probably the more well, one of the more well-known ones. And I wonder, like, is that a niche that you're going after? Like, is that, you know, I think gambling and pornography is like the worst industries to be involved in. I want to be clear, pump is a trading product.

Like, when you, when you trade on pumps, like, it's a skill-based, it's a skill-based activity. It's not gambling. And I think that's a, that goes where, like, if you focus on, sort of gambling, like the content is so boring. Like you just watch someone like spin slots. That's not what you want, right? You want like someone who's like doing something fun or like, or like just like think of like the biggest YouTubers, right?

That's kind of what the kind of activity we're trying to try to incentivize. But that does not, that does not this way does for try different niches, not the we haven't actually gone into the sort of online gambling one I'm certain of. But stuff where it's like looking into stuff like I don't know, maybe it's like sports or like gaming or so, all this different stuff. all these different sections because the way you see and identify for product as P and F is simply like AB testing right you have to see which which vertical is working which vertical isn't working and digging into it and understanding the sort of the psychology and the

usage of it so it's about doing a bunch of ab testing and sort of identifying what niches work and then sort of expanding on that and what we believe or what we think is like and we've seen has been the most successful has been like the iRL stuff and that the streams have been sort of kicking off. So, yeah. Well, just, you know, in general, as you're looking to take on some of these more mainstream social media platforms that you mentioned before, you know, how do you think about how to do that? Like, how do you break out of crypto? You know, do you feel like this, this strategy that you started where you're bringing on sort of these, you know, moderately well-known streamers is working? Well, no, again, like bringing on streamers, that's not like, we've tried some of that. But again, like,

A lot at most, I've said like 99 plus percent of the streaming activity on pump is organic, right? It's just like word of mouth and people using it and they're sort of speaking to them. And then what we do do, however, is when we see someone like coming on and they're sort of using the streaming platform and they're really enjoying it, we reach out to them. Right. We put them in a group chat and we're like, hey, do you want to go to like Africa and do you want to take some pictures of zebras or something? Like, we'll finance that trip, right? Because we want to have, we want to have like a cool, we want to allow us have a sort of cool experience and sort of create. better content. So we don't bring over streamers, but we do open up the flowways to creating

meta content. And that's for anyone listening as well. Like if you're interested in streaming, like reach out. Like we'll speak to you. We have like a fully dedicated streaming team who'll help you out and sort of do all this sort of stuff. And again, I said this on the Delphi podcast the other day. But I think we spent about over a quarter million dollars on streaming equipment. This is like webcams, like microphones, which you can like walk around with and like cameras and all this stuff to give to these people so they can have a chance to start streaming and get this off the ground. Because the truth is, like, kick, I think kind of has PMF, but the PMF just comes from like stakes massive sort of gambling, gambling role.

It's like paying all these people to like advocate for gambling, basically, right? That's not like a long-term approach. What you really want to be going for is like this bottom-up approach where people are using the product because they love it, right? Like the thing I'd more look at as a comparison here is like the TikTok stream. So like the Instagram live streamers, that's kind of more the audience we sort of want to go for because that hint that's like a whole lot more wholesome and a lot more rewarding. And also, again, can just grow a lot more than focusing on a bunch of people like wanting to trade slots all day. So yeah.

And out of all of the different activities, people do you on social media, why did you decide to focus on streaming? Honestly, user activity. So we just like, again, like this goes back to sort of speaking to users a lot. But I mean, not many people know this, but if you use pump sometimes, like a, a Google meets link will sort of pop up and be like, hey, if you join this for one hour, you'll get like one Solana. And then users will sort of go on there. And then like our engineers or team will sort of,

we'll sort of, we'll user interview them. And this was very early on the streaming. I mean, there's obviously that whole controversy, which happened. But even before that, we saw what we were like, looking at what users were doing. It was streaming in telegram groups. There was like 15 people on telegram watching like a stream together. And we thought this makes sense.

Like, while we implemented. Very similar decision-making process to why did we bring in the, the sort of DM feature, right? Like, what does everyone in? crypto do and outside of crypto, they're all on Telegram, right? They're all your like all your VC buddies are talking on Telegram or your or like your trading friends are talking on Telegram. And if you can import something, which is a lot more crypto native and create like a crypto,

like isolated ecosystem and build features for crypto traders. Like imagine like pubs directly built into sort of typing or like your stable coin payments, all this sort of stuff like builds into a messaging app for the user base, which is sort of currently out there. I think that's sort of super special. So yeah, it's about like looking at what the users are doing and then sort of like building a product which is better for them than what they're currently doing. That's the kind of way I like to see it. So yeah, I mean, basically it's like a way to kind of hang out with your friends digitally like in real time. Like you may not be physically in a room together, but yeah, you're all doing something. It's the same here. Like I mean, even though it's like we communicated over telegram before this or like like every single trading group I'm in, especially the younger generations I think is like everyone's sort of like perpetually online. I think that's like. I mean, it's like perpetually online. I think that's. That's like a really big thing. The other thing is like one thing I want to highlight here as well,

as I was mentioning some of the other podcasts as well. But like the people who use Pump are like the younger generation. So it's always like super like the people between like 18 and sort of 24 who are using this and sort of sort of really focused on it. And I think it's like people are kind of fed up with all this sort of perp stuff, which is kind of like zero sum and just like not very social. It's not it's quite like boring, not very entertaining. And then you then you sort of see the stuff where it's like like when Alan said like

pump wants to build the most fun place on the internet. then like I couldn't agree more. I think I think it makes all the sense. So yeah. And so when you talked about how like you also want to get into sports and gaming, like are you just, you know, watching who naturally comes on the platform and starts using it and then like trying to pick out people who you feel like could cultivate those areas or like how you, it's, it's not about picking them out. I mean, you do that anyways. Like anyone who's consistently streaming on pump, we speak to and we like, we look after them. Right. It's like the same thing which TikTok did as well as like, not many people know this, but they would have.

have like whole cohorts, like hundreds of people who they would basically like teach how to stream. They're just like give them incentives and like give them free food and all the stuff. And literally like they go like streaming boot camps. Like this is how you stream. This is how you make the good content. That's something which is going to happen anyways, basically. So that's that that's no worries. Then it's more like understanding maybe the gaming streamer prefers like a subscription based model.

Maybe the gaming streamer wants emote reactions or maybe the gaming streamer wants to sort of stream with multiple people at the same time. It's like speaking to these people and understanding what they want and then and then building that out. And it's not so easy doing that either, right? Because you can't just go to people and be like, ask like, hey, like, what do you want? Right? Like, you need to go to them and it's like, like, builds a relationship with them and so speaking to them and sort of slowly understand what they want, not just ask them what they want. If that makes sense. So, yeah.

Okay. So I did also just want to ask like some philosophical questions because, you know, I'm watching all this stuff happening. And it just seems so interesting. Like, you know, if you kind of think about almost like the history of the internet, right? It's like, you know, Chris Dixon has this thing that like it starts with reading, then writing, then owning, you know, for every version of the internet up through Web 3. And, you know, I was just curious, like, what do you think pump represents culturally? Like, you're clearly enabling new behaviors, new types of activity. But, like, what is that?

You know, how do you think about, like, where you fit in the evolution of the environment? the history of the world or the internet. I think it's like what the young people are doing. That's like I think right now the world and I've seen it sort of firsthand is like in a really dark place, right? Like the rich people are just getting even even richer and like the poor people are getting even poorer, right? And it's like the wealth gap is just increasing more and more and more.

And it's basically it's like it's almost impossible to escape out of like that this sort of system because it's like so entrenched and so and it's all this like I and like it's really dystopian. Like you look at stuff like TikTok and Instagram. reels and people are just like on this like 10 hours a day right and it's like this stuff is like don't forget like when you buy like an iPhone like the first reason like the main reason the only reason you're buying an iPhone is so that you like spend money on that iPhone like that's the only reason like an iPhone even exists right and I think then it sort goes in like you open the Instagram

app and the only reason the Instagram app is so that you consume more content so you watch more ads and I think this this creates like a really like skewed sort of like a skewed world which like yeah just like kind of like brainwashes a lot of people and causing a lot of harm. So I think it's like one, it kind of pumps and really highlights the fact that people want to escape this, they want to get out. And it really gives them the optionality to do so. And it might sound a bit crazy that this is sort of what mean coins are and what it has

become now. But if you look at this and you speak to like, I know, like your interns or like your daughters, like sons, all this sort of stuff, like what do you do? And I think if they're like, if they're somewhat sort of financially savvy or somewhat in crypto related or even general. I had friends, like I hadn't spoken to in years, were reaching out to me, like, wait, you're the founder of Pump Fund.

And these people, like, they had no idea what crypto was, right? And I think that really speaks for it. And there's obviously like the Black Mirror episode as well. And I think it really shows that it's like, the youth wants to like, one, create their own financial system and two kind of escape the sort of, like, the matrix basically, just like being stuck in it and just not being able to escape.

And I think it's like, I think people say like the internet has like increased access for people and allow people to sort of live a better life and get more information. I think it's kind of true, but I also think it's like kind of not true. Like it's also like it's really dark. Like at least like back in the day, you like go outside or something. But now like it's just like Instagram, TikTok, like you just can't leave. And I think it's like it's pretty mess up.

So really the hope here is for Pumpum and what we want to help them do is is create something where they, one, you can obviously consume content because people do enjoy that, but you can financially benefit from doing so anyways. Because if you're spending like hours upon hours upon hours of sort of consuming this content, or at least like you to be able to sort of invest into that and sort of create a whole new market. Again, I said this day the day of day as well,

but like I really believe that every generation creates a whole new financial system. Like it really sort of goes down and sort of layers, right? There's like the boomers who create like the banks and there's like the sort of Silicon Valley people and now it's like the crypto people. Like it's always like the like history always rhymes but never repeats, right? And I think it sort of speaks to it. And now, like, the reason

I like crypto and I think where this is like the next big company is going to come from is because this is where all the young people are. Like all the really young, smart, talented people are all building crypto. And I think that that sort of should highlight its long-term success and nothing else. So, yeah. I was also curious. Like, do you feel like you're learning things about human behavior from watching how people use pump? Like, do you feel like you're, like seeing new behaviors or like you're seeing, yeah, culture or society evolve. Like I'm curious, yeah, just what you feel like you're learning from. I mean, I think like culture and society sort of, like, again, it just like it repeats itself

in different ways, right? I think it's like impossible to like evolve. Like I think like the human nature is the same has always been that for the way for the past like 3,000 years. So I think it's very hard to sort of engineer something which will create like a whole new type of acting. I think you can like take different ways of acting and sort of put it together. and could you argue that's like a different one?

I don't know, maybe. But like all I know is when I first sort of start, even now, like streaming and all this sort of social way of like spreading the information of these coins is when you watch these people like a chart plus a stream, like for me, that is like a whole new, whole new form of content. And I think that was kind of the very special thing I saw. So yeah. So I did want to ask because as I'm sure you're very well aware,

a lot of people criticize Pump Fun and like similar platforms. saying it's gambling or it's the mean coin casino. And I wondered what your response is to those critics. I know, just like have a higher IQ, I guess. Wait, I'm sorry. I say that again. I said, like, have a higher IQ. Like look at what I look what's actually going on, understand it, like read into it and maybe like use the product and really understand, understand what's happening. And I think like a lot of people, they're just like bad. And I think a lot of this is this comes from like the old people, right? The people who like made their money on like Pocodot or made their money on like Ethereum or made their money on Bitcoin.

They just like, and that's why I don't like about crypto-is. It's like super tribalized. And people just like, they understand that like Pocodot was just a meme coin which got launched like five years ago. It's the same thing. It's literally the same thing. I think it's just like, oh my God, all this sort of bad stuff. I'd say like you have to understand what's going on here. Right.

Like this is like some of the, like I would say like the for our age, like we're probably some of the most successful. Like we probably are the most successful entrepreneurs of anyone under sort of the age of 24 found in this sort of platform. I think if that doesn't make your sort of eyes open up, then I don't know what can really help you. So, yeah. And I was curious for you personally.

Like, do you consider yourself more like a crypto person or a meme coin person or a streaming person or, you know, I was curious just because like you could, you could say that pump has kind of multiple ways that you could slice and dice it? Or like, are you a social media person? And I wondered what your personal affinity is for the very very. you know, lenses through which you could like a pump. I mean, again, like personal, like, I mean, look, I was in crypto for for a while before we, before I sort of founded Pump.

Obviously, I'm like, again, I don't think there's like one sort of necessary. I think that, okay, that's a unique thing as well, right? So there's obviously three co-founders of sort of pump. I think everyone has their sort of unique, unique ability or their unique talent or their unique niche, which they're an expertise. And I think that's why we're such a brilliant team because everyone sort of has their own angle of what they think the world sort of looks like, right? And I think that allows us to create something, which is almost like a jumble of like a bunch of different stuff, which is happening simultaneously.

And I know, I think like I'm super interested in finance. I'm interested in like sort of social dynamics and how that can sort of impact stuff. And then, but most of all, I do just like generally enjoy it, enjoy it a lot. Like I do like creating stuff which people use and then can create these sort of changes in the way people think and how they act as well. So, yeah. Okay. And I wonder, you know, like there's multiple different ways that you could go mainstream. And clearly you're trying out a number of these. You know, but as you do that, there's going to be this tension between pushing the envelope, you know, which like you kind of have to do if you're, if you want to create something new and edgy. But then also, you know, like there's a certain point past which like if you go past that limit, then it might be, you know, somewhat. damaging to your reputation or yeah so you know what have you learned from like past instance like those streaming incidents where like people were kind of you know threatening violence or you know

whatever just um or just pretty much any of the other incidents have happened because there's been a number where i know you were guys you guys were challenged so yeah how do you think yeah so i and the biggest learning from this is like back when the streaming thing um sort of happened it was like ship a product it doesn't matter how bad it is it doesn't it how matter how like it barely works like just no consideration, get it out in the world, and make sure people use it and just try and get, see if people use it. So I think the biggest thing we've learned is just preparation and thinking about like the, like, what's the worst case scenario? It's kind of like you need that one person in the room. It was like, if this goes wrong, this could be something really bad, right? And then

we had like, obviously we shut down streaming as soon as something bad happened. And then we had like a whole moderation team, which is sort of working on that now, right? Like around the clock, there's like tens of dozens of people online to monitor of anything that's sort of going on. And this works sort of flawlessly so far. And hopefully we'll sort of continue to catch any wrongdoings. And then you have stuff like new product releases, like the DM stuff, obviously that comes with risks, right? People can be sending inappropriate messages and appropriate images, like really like illegal and bad stuff. So moderation also has to be employed on that. So it's just like, I mean, it sounds kind of like classic, I guess,

but just like learning from your past mistakes and then iterating on it and learning quickly because otherwise you're not going to make it very far. I didn't think. So yeah. Okay. And, you know, so just going back to like, your big mission that, you know, you announced when you were doing the ISO. Did you, do you have like kind of, even if it's a vague roadmap of like how it is that you want to try to take on the likes of TikTok or? No, no, no. Again, I would throw this like roadmap fallacy away.

And I would encourage everyone to do this as well, that this is not how this sort of stuff works. There's not like a 10-step plan of how to become the biggest company in the world. That just doesn't exist, right? And I think, again, I saw this previously as well. but if you look at the best companies in the world, I mean, like WhatsApp, for example, I made that example last time.

Like, it hasn't changed. Like, the product since launch is exactly the same product. There's, like, very, very few differences, which allowed it to grow to a sort of large scale. So the way these companies grow is actually by having small, just like very niche changes. Like, I know, like WhatsApp different languages. Or, for example, it costs money at the start.

They then made it free. And then they did stuff where it's like, okay, up to 1,000 people can be in a group chat. these very small niches can unlock sort of next levels of growth. I think that's the next thing we're really trying to sort of push out basically. And there's no such thing as a roadmap. It's just like constant iteration and just like rapid improvement as fast as possible. And again, just like speaking to users and understanding what the users want and then also combining that with some kind of forward-looking vision,

which I think the world is going to look like, which is going to be this sort of, like the bank and the platform, which becomes like the next biggest thing will be something like this, combination of what all the zoomers are using today, right? It's like you have your like, you chat with people there, like you consume your content there and you sort of have your finances there at the same time. It's like this bigger sort of envisioning glossed into one larger product. Okay, so if I were going to summarize kind of like what this might look like, you know, some number of years in the future, we won't name how many. It's basically there's communities that are aligned around creators and whatever content creators are putting out. But

both the creators themselves and the communities can benefit financially. And whatever it is that the creators are putting out, has a little bit of this, you know, real-time component through the streaming. And then on top of that, there's like... A bank? Like, you have your life savings on this app as well, right? It's like, imagine, like, you sort of swap between TikTok, you swap between Robin Hood and you sort of also got your bank,

which you can, like, pay for at the grocery store, all in like one mega application. Oh, wow. Okay. It's super interesting. So it is, it is like the Everything app kind of. Yeah, quite legit.

But like if you think about the Everything apps, which are sort of built out today, they're sort of focus on one niche. And they like they're, again, they're kind of like old peopleish. Like it sounds silly, but like nobody really uses like Facebook anymore.

Like this stuff is like, it sort of like faded into a relevancy. And then like our generation or, you know, the bit above was like this Instagram generation there. And there's like the TikTok self, which like the eight year olds are watching, I guess.

And there's like, the question is like, what is the thing which will hit the sort of next level of the 18-year-old at the next generation, basically. So, yeah. And then one question, and maybe this is like resolved by the generational issue. But because of this sort of judgment and stigma that we see around meme coins, like, I wondered if you guys have any thoughts or if you're like trying to strategize about how to overcome that with mainstream people.

I mean, again, like, we've like purposely like tried to stay away from describing ourselves as a meme coin platform. because that's like, although it like it is used as that, like what we've built is is a tool which can be used for anything you want. Like if people are only uploading sort of YouTube videos or like YouTube-esque videos on Pump, then it will be like a, it would be like a video sharing platform. Right. So I think that's kind of the beauty of this. It's like it's like infrastructure, right? It allows anyone to sort of, well, not infrastructure, but it's like a, it's like a social media platform which allows to do with it what you want. And it's like, it's super interoperable. So I think I don't want to like sort of say pump is a meme coin thing. pump is a short form video trading platform, pump as a live stream trading platform,

pump up as a messaging app. It's whatever you want it to be. And I think that's what you see to happen to these sort of larger, these large applications as well where it really creates something which is like you can use it in the way you want. Like Twitter is probably used for like thousands of different reasons. Like you really have historians looking at it, trying to understand like different opinions from like specialized historians. Like maybe it's like people who just want to like watch and scroll and watch people like sort of

I know play music or whatever. There's just like so many different reasons, so many different like use cases for it. I think it's the same with everything. And I think it's very dangerous to sort of lock yourself into one. So we just try to ignore it because I want to create something which really has, which is a tool for everyone, basically. So yeah.

Okay. And this is just like me spitballing. But I was sort of thinking like, you know, you have this like streaming component, which is like a real time thing. Yeah. which is sort of like you could think of it as an event. But then, you know, we have prediction markets, which, you know, they're called event contracts.

And I wondered, like, is there a way to do like some kind of mashup there? No, just like, again, like I think everyone's on this like prediction market sort of hype train or something. Like, the prediction markets don't work. I mean, they do work, but like they don't make any money. Like this is not, this is not like a business. Like this doesn't really exist. Like, there's not a single prediction market in the world, which is, I mean, I, again, I don't know too much the details.

But like, I think our daily volume is like sometimes in the business. And these prediction markets have like monthly volumes of like 100 million. And I think that really just shows you where like the, the interest of the users and like taking this whole thing, oh, let's combine it together. Like like prediction markets are literally just like a glorified sort of VC narrative. Like that's all they are. Like there are there's, in my experience of these,

until something significantly changes, these are not revenue generating businesses and not businesses which have having an, they might get like an opinion because like a lot of people see them for a brief period of time. But they're not something which people actually use. And like I think this speaks about it a lot. Like if you look at the sort of different CEOs and for like different, different companies in the world, like you'll see like the best, the best, like the best products and the best companies. Like you don't really see the sort of the CEOs running around preaching about the future vision, right?

Because the product is just doing itself. And you see other people. Again, I'm not going to name any names. But if you like look into it, like the more the CEO has to tell like the vision of the platform, like the less it's working. I think that that sort of that sort of speaks. about the world in general. So I think it's like, again, like the most important thing about is,

is it building something which the users want to use? So, yeah. Okay. Well, last question for me. And I'm only asking because I feel like people will be mad if I don't ask it. It's just like any news about the air drop that you want to talk about. Again, I would refer to like our sort of like public communication. So, yeah, I mean, again, everything will be announced.

Obviously, it's sort of there and everything. So just like, look at our Twitter. I promise you everything will be accurately addressed. So please interest. Okay. Well, you know, you said that you wanted to come on here and like talk about how you were going to like bring this app out of crypto into the mainstream. So is there anything on that subject or any other subject that you didn't get to say that

you would want to say? But I think again, like I would just like, okay, the biggest takeaway I would take away from this is like if you look at products throughout history, a lot of them, they don't start off as the things which they become, right? Like, if you look at, like, sort of YouTube or even, like, Facebook and these larger companies, like, like, even Facebook, it was, like, hated. Like, everyone hated Facebook. They, like, they thought it was, like, a, there's, like, this, like, this, like, horrible guy

who was, like, just, like an evil person and all this sort of stuff. So it was, like, really, really disliked. And I think, and again, like, what, what meta has become now is, like, probably, like, you couldn't even, like, you could barely imagine it, like, 20 years ago. So I think it's just, like, the biggest thing is, like, look where the talent, to look where talent is going, understand that this stuff, like, changes over time. And then just like, yeah, I think long-term dedication is also a really big thing, which can have like a really big impact. So, yeah.

Okay. All right. Well, where can people learn more about you and pump fun? Twitter, I guess. Yeah, just like Twitter is probably the best way to reach out to us. So, yeah. Okay. Well, it's been a pleasure having you on Unchained. Thank you so much. Thanks so much for joining us today. To learn more about NOAA and Pump Fun, check out the show notes for this episode. Unchained is produced by me, Laura Shin, with help from Matt Pilger, Juan Aranovich, Pamma Jimdar, and Margaret Curia. Thanks for listening.