The recent ICO of the PUMP token from the Pump.fun project raised a huge amount - $ 500 million in just 12 minutes. However, not all participants were able to complete the purchase without complications. According to the ICO website, only $ 51.5 million went through three popular centralized exchanges. The rest of the tokens were purchased directly through Pump.fun itself.
The PUMP sale was conducted on platforms such as Bitget, Kraken, Bybit, MEXC, Kucoin and Gate. Kraken and Kucoin accounted for $ 30 million and $ 16.5 million, respectively. Many investors complained about failures and delays - their applications were processed late, and as a result, they never received their allocations. To smooth things over, Kraken CEO Arjun Sethi promised to hold a free airdrop for everyone affected by the failure. According to him, users will not have to take any additional actions — tokens will be credited automatically based on confirmed applications.
At the same time, Bybit issued an apology. The exchange admitted that some traders' orders did not go through even if they were placed literally seconds after the start of the sale. The reason was an unexpected API failure, which caused a system overload. Some investors managed to buy out the tokens, while the rest did not get access to the allocation. Bybit promised a full refund for everyone affected.
Despite the technical failures, the PUMP ICO became one of the largest in the industry. With a token price of $0.004, its market capitalization reached $4 billion. In total, almost 24 thousand people participated in the token sale, but only 10 thousand users' applications were successful. The average investment amounted to more than $44 thousand. It is noteworthy that three quarters of all tokens are concentrated in just 843 wallets with investments over $100 thousand, while almost 180 addresses hold assets worth more than $1 million.
Premarket for PUMP is currently open on Hyperliquid. There, the token is still trading above the presale price, and the maximum mark reached $0.0072. The official start of trading is scheduled for July 15.
Assessments of the past ICO are divided. Dragonfly venture partner Haseeb Qureshi noted that thanks to receiving a quarter of the income from trading, PUMP will become one of the most profitable tokens in the crypto industry. Meanwhile, the founder of Pump.fun, under the pseudonym Alon, announced a sale for $600 million, although initially $500 million was listed on the sale page. Well-known trader Ashcryptoreal sarcastically noted that investors were again naive, investing a huge amount in just 12 minutes. On-chain analyst rezxbt warned of risks - according to him, 40% of the total PUMP volume remains under the control of the team, which could become a threat to liquidity.