David Edwards
Pump.fun’s graduation rate, or the proportion of tokens that make it from incubation to full trading, fell below 1% for the fourth week in a row, suggesting that the memecoin craze is winding down.
The Falling Success Rate of Pump.fun
A memecoin is deemed “graduated” on Pump.fun when it satisfies particular liquidity and trading requirements, enabling unrestricted trading on Solana’s decentralized exchanges (DEXs). But according to Dune Analytics statistics, the graduation rate has stayed at all-time lows for the last four weeks, starting on February 17.
Pump.fun has never had a very high graduation percentage in the past. In November 2024, when 1.67% of memecoins made the successful switch to open-market trade, it had its best week. However, at the time, this percentage was more important due to the large number of new launches. For instance, 323,000 new tokens were added to the network in the week beginning November 11, 2024. This means that 5,400 coins entered Solana’s DeFi ecosystem in just seven days, even with a graduation rate of 1.67%.
The number of successful graduates has now drastically decreased, with token generation on Pump.fun and Solana both falling. Dune claims that the four-week average has dropped to about 1,500 tokens.
Memecoins Are Not Adapting to the State of the Market
The persistent decline in graduation rates draws attention to the declining interest of investors in memecoins, which are increasingly perceived as transient speculative investments rather than long-term assets.
Even well-known people, like Donald Trump, have had difficulty maintaining the demand for memecoins. According to CoinGecko, the former US president’s coin has fallen 84% from its peak on January 19.
Even though the liquidity situation in the larger cryptocurrency marketplaces has improved, this fall has continued. Matrixport analysts have previously observed that tighter dollar-denominated liquidity caused by a stronger U.S. dollar has put downward pressure on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. But according to TradingView data, the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) has subsequently depreciated, dropping from a top of 107.61 on February 28 to 103.95 as of March 14.
However, memecoins continue to face significant pressure in spite of these changes. This is further supported by the most recent Matrixport report, which says:
“The U.S. dollar has recently weakened, leading to a rebound in liquidity indicators and some marginal improvements in inflation data. Despite these positive shifts, memecoins—previously one of the strongest narratives during this bull market—continue to struggle significantly, with no apparent recovery.”
The Crypto Market Could Shake Out by $1 Trillion
According to Matrixport, the collapse of the memecoin industry has caused a startling $1 trillion drop in market valuation throughout the whole cryptocurrency market.
“This redistribution of wealth may lead investors to remain cautious about deploying further capital, causing rebounds—even those triggered by better-than-expected inflation data—to be limited,” the report added.
With investors reevaluating risk in the face of shifting macroeconomic conditions, the cryptocurrency market seems to be entering a phase of capital reallocation as memecoin fever wanes.
