Original Article Title: pump.fun's Sapijiju: First-Ever Discussion on Building the Future of Social Trading

Original Source: Delphi Digital

Original Translation: Ismay, BlockBeats

Editor's Note: On September 11th, Pump.Fun's native token PUMP was listed on the Korean exchange Upbit, bringing market attention back to this once rapidly growing crypto company. The meme craze may not be as strong as last year, but Pump.Fun's track in the past year has been fiercely competitive.

It is in this environment of "cooling hype, intensifying competition" that Pump.Fun's product and capital strategy have become more distinctive. The content of this podcast is from Noah, one of Pump.Fun's anonymous co-founders. This is his first public podcast appearance, both in response to external questions about Pump.Fun's token listing, buyback mechanism, and other strategic actions, and as a turning point in the team's communication strategy. Through more direct dialogue, he hopes to show Pump's internal perspective and long-term vision, allowing the community and potential users to understand that the company is not satisfied with being labeled a "meme launch platform," but is attempting to open up a larger imaginative space in a product-driven manner.

Nine Ventures Needed for Pump.Fun, Coinbase is a Failed Company

Delphi Digital: Hello, everyone, we're glad you're all here. Today we have a special guest—Noah (@sapijiju), one of the co-founders of Pump.Fun.

Pump launched last year and quickly took the market by storm, with incredibly wild data performance. By the fourth quarter, they had a highly anticipated token issuance event. Earlier this year, they raised a significant amount of capital, the token initially surged, then fell back, and the current price is about 10% above the ICO level. From a market share perspective, they were once the absolute top launch platform, temporarily overshadowed by Bonk, but later regained their share.

From the latest data, it appears that their revenue for the past month was approximately around $50 million, and almost all of this $50 million was directly used to buy back tokens in the order book. This trend is still ongoing, which is also the core reason attracting everyone's attention. In a current market environment where no one would say it is "booming," they can still achieve this scale of buyback, which annualized amounts to a $600 million buyback. So everyone is very much looking forward to what their next steps will be. They have a large amount of funds at hand, as well as long-term plans; the key is to understand how they intend to deploy these funds and how to expand the platform.

Friends on Crypto Twitter should all know Alon, but in fact, the discussion with Noah has helped us better understand Pump's role in the crypto industry, not only how it has grown within the industry but also how it has driven the development of the entire crypto industry. So, Noah, we are very much looking forward to starting with your background; how did you eventually dive your whole life into Pump?

Noah: I think some people may know me more from the investment side, which is my main role, so usually, my face and identity are relatively low-key.

However, we feel that now is an appropriate time to openly discuss the product, bring a different internal perspective. Because when many people mention Pump, the first thing that comes to mind is Alon's image on Twitter and our corporate account. That account does do a good job, sharing our plans, etc., but ultimately, its audience is limited. And what I want to talk about today is that Pump's future is not only a part of the current 'Trench' ecosystem; we truly hope to develop this company into something else.

Many people think Pump is just a small team, not many people behind it. But in fact, the situation is completely different now. We have three co-founders: me, Dylan, and Alon. And nowadays, the number of team members working directly or indirectly on the Pump platform has reached nearly 70. We are a fairly large team and are still recruiting, hoping to advance further in competition.

Regarding my background, to be honest, I have almost no formal background. Alon, Dylan, and I are all very young. I founded a company related to Pump when I was 19. Before that, I basically finished high school and spent about six months in college. Starting from the age of 16 or 17, the only thing I did was related to cryptocurrency.

Initially, I was involved in mining, and at that time, in my high school dorm room, the room temperature was heated to 35 degrees by four GPUs. With a daily mining income of about $10, I gradually entered this field. My first job was actually as a Discord community moderator. At that time, I wanted to find a way to interact with users and investors quickly, so I quickly joined a project called SoJava NFT Pub, which aimed to become an NFT futures exchange.

I remember you might know Joe, and we discussed this project back then. I was around 18 or 19 at the time, and that was when I started working with Alon. I also suggested to Joe to bring Alon on board. Joe is a great guy, and he is still an angel investor on our platform, interestingly witnessing the entire project's inception.

Later on, I still held the mentality of "finding something that can be accomplished." I met some people through BD and built up a network at meetings. Later, I decided to leave NFT Pub and embark on a new venture. It was still in the NFT space initially, and our idea back then was to create a truly consumer-facing product. That was over two years ago. We tried many things, but the infrastructure at the time was a mess, with very few things actually being used.

Of course, there were exceptions. For example, Daniella's MIM, although many people later had a very negative opinion of it, at least what he did was being used by people, with MIM heavily utilized in leveraged trading. Another example is Terra Luna, even though the outcome was tragic for many, UST was indeed being used by millions at the time. For me, the inspiration from these cases was that if you are going to do something, it has to be a product that can truly be used by tens of thousands, or even tens of millions, of users, rather than relying solely on some false narrative or endorsements from big-name schools or VCs to deceive everyone.

Our goal has always been to create a widely used product. If we can truly achieve this, I even hope to completely exit this industry in the future. Because based on the current situation, the crypto world is not doing well; it needs real change to develop to a scale large enough to reshape the industry.

Delphi Digital: I am actually quite curious. You ultimately chose to build Pump as a product because its original purpose was to prevent "rug pull projects," serving as a service to the market. And it quickly found a product-market fit, not only within the crypto community but also outside it. My question is, how did you reach this point? Why did you believe that Pump was that "killer product"? In this process, what gains did you have? This includes before and after token issuance, as we often see in our advisory work that once a token is released, it can become an entirely new "beast." It can either be the fuel to ignite the flame or potentially become a disruptive factor at some point. So, I am very interested in hearing how you perceive the different stages of the product before and after token issuance and the changes throughout the entire lifecycle.

Noah: In fact, many people do not understand this point. We have told this story several times, but I really feel that everyone needs to understand how challenging it is to truly achieve PMF. Looking at the top 100 market cap tokens now, perhaps only about fifteen have genuinely achieved PMF, with the rest mostly having some fraudulent elements.

We have been able to get to where we are today thanks to one failure after another. Since founding and operating the company behind Pump, we have tried eight or nine different ideas. For example, we did an NFT Launchpad, which had a mechanism somewhat similar to Pump's current logic; my co-founder also did an NFT AMM; we also tried a funding model for content creators — for instance, a TikTok creator could presell 5% of their future earnings and tokenize it, but this model failed. We also tried to create a revenue-sharing mechanism for crypto auditors, somewhat like a professional poker player selling part of their stake to reduce volatility, but it didn't work out.

Later, we even tried to fork FriendTech, engage in "vampire attacks" against FriendTech, and dabble in meme coin gameplay. One project after another, but at that time, we didn't raise much money, unlike other companies that could secure millions of dollars in funding. We only had a few very loyal angel investors supporting us. So we had to try over and over again, and the process was very challenging. You invest months in developing a product, release it to the community, and no one pays attention. You send out a tweet, people take one look and think, "What is this? Not interested," and then swipe away, that feeling of defeat is really heavy.

It wasn't until the ninth attempt that we successfully "hit" the market with Pump.

Looking back, it's quite interesting because we still have some of the old project wireframes. If you were to compare, you would find that Pump is like a "collage" of all our failed products. The UI design of the NFT AMM is very similar to Pump's current UI, and the logic of funding content creators also continues in Pump. It can be said that Pump was born by "kneading" together past failures. So the biggest takeaway is the repeated failures until we hit on the right thing. Even now, when we develop products, we still maintain this mindset.

This way of thinking is all about continuous experimentation. In the past year and a half, we have tried many different directions. And to be honest, not to boast, but if you truly look at what has happened in the crypto industry, you will find that hardly anyone is truly innovating.

Think about it, what has really been done in the crypto industry in recent years? Apart from recreating another PerpDEX or launching a stablecoin with a slightly different mechanism? We have done live streaming, chat features, social functions, and even developed a mobile app that now has hundreds of thousands of users.

Admittedly, these functions may not seem unique in the world of centralized exchanges, but when you look back at the entire crypto industry — in my opinion, to this day, there is not a single truly successful crypto company. For example, Coinbase, I really don't think it's a good company. What has Brian Armstrong really done? Essentially, he was just the first to productize a Bitcoin wallet and was then carried along by the times.

Many people need to realize that most of the so-called innovations in the crypto industry are actually outdated, lacking true breakthroughs, and have not been able to advance the future we are expecting. Our approach at Pump is to constantly take big risks to try out things that can drive market share expansion—not only within the crypto industry but also beyond.

Looking at the top companies in the crypto circle, I think Tether is indeed a remarkable business. But what about other companies? Their market cap is only one or two trillion dollars. From a global perspective, these companies are actually considered failures.

Compare this to Facebook/Meta, valued at 2.5 trillion dollars, or Saudi Aramco, and Tesla. These are companies that have truly made a global impact. In contrast, crypto companies have hardly made any real world-changing efforts in the past decade. In my view, most large crypto companies have grown mainly due to Bitcoin itself rather than their products.

If Coinbase had simply converted all their fundraising money into Bitcoin back then, the cash on their balance sheet today might not be much less than their actual operational business. Yes, you could say they made Bitcoin more accessible, contributing to democratization, but the fact is many crypto companies are merely "index-hugging," riding the wave of the overall market. So what we truly aim to do is break out of this "crypto matrix" and try to do things that no one has done before.

The Creator Economy of Pump.Fun

Delphi Digital: Speaking of the recent moves you've made to realize this vision, you've just launched the streaming feature, specifically enhancing the creator fee mechanism. The most significant change is that you've raised the initial bonding curve and the fee ratio in the early stages of market valuation. However, these additional fees are not taken by you but are all given to the creators.

From a trader's perspective, this 1% fee in an environment where the token could fluctuate 10% every few minutes almost has no effect and will not hinder their operations. But for creators, this is a quite substantial income. You have previously showcased some examples, showing that under the new fee structure, creators' income can be 10 to 20 times higher than before. The data is also quite remarkable, with $2.4 million in fees directly distributed to creators on the first day of the new mechanism going live.

So this not only presents beautiful aggregate data but also tells a grassroots story: some small creators who used to livestream to no viewers can now earn a significant income even if only a few people are watching. I would like to hear your thoughts on this and your future plans.

Noah: I would like to start by saying that everyone has already seen some achievements in the Creator section, and this is just a very good start. But for those who think Pump is just a meme coin issuance platform, or that it only focuses on meme coins, I hope you can take a step back and really see what this product is actually being used for and who is using it.

One point I especially want to emphasize is that many of Pump's users are young people. My observation is that the crypto world is actually divided into two market segments: one is people over 30, who have already made a lot of money through projects like Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Polkadot; the other is a new generation of users, roughly aged 16 to 18-24, who are entering the crypto world, and they happen to be the main driving force behind Pump.

We never wanted to be a "meme coin platform." That was never the goal from the beginning. What we wanted to do was create a platform where everything could be traded—short videos, live streams, YouTube-style videos, tweets, and so on.

Imagine a world where every piece of content on the internet can be invested in, traded, and shared. We found that the core feature of Pump is that it is fundamentally a social product. You issue a token on the platform or talk about a token, and that token's value rises due to the discussion. Similarly, any content that is talked about attracts more people. Initially, we thought that creators having their own tokens would be sufficient, but they would have to sell those tokens (e.g., selling part of their YouTube video tokens) to make money, which clearly is not the ideal path.

In this world, especially in the fast-paced field of tech startups, a product must be 10 times or even 100 times better than its competitors to truly succeed. Our plan to challenge those large social media companies is this: if you are live streaming on TikTok or Instagram, even if you have 5000 followers, your monthly income might only be $10, $20, or $50, which is far from enough to live on. But on Pump, we established mechanisms from the start to allow content creators to earn income 100 times higher than traditional social media. Besides the token logic, the recently introduced creator fee structure has far exceeded my expectations.

I believe we may be approaching the "escape velocity-style PMF moment" on the creator track. Just last night, I saw a streamer on the Pump interface with only 20 viewers, the stream had only been live for 8 minutes, and it was his first time streaming on Pump, yet he had already earned $300 in fees. This amazed me, but at the same time, it was expected because this is exactly the outcome we designed from the beginning.

If you compare, a streamer going live for the first time on Twitch with only 20 viewers may only earn 50 cents or 1 dollar in a month. On the other hand, on Pump, the same 20 viewers can generate $300 in revenue. This means that our product directly provides a revenue increase of 100 times, 300 times, or even 600 times. What do creators care most about on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and others? Of course, they care about their audience, but the most crucial aspect is economic incentive. The world we aim to build is one where creators on Pump can not only earn money but also leverage network effects to reach a larger audience, thus attracting more high-quality content creators to join.

This is our plan in this direction. The current new creator fee mechanism is just an early version, and we will continue to iterate and optimize it to make it more user-friendly. Once this adjustment is made, it will unleash a very unique value. We have already launched the mobile app, which will help spread the product faster. Additionally, we have implemented a built-in direct messaging feature (DMs)—I haven't seen any other crypto company integrate direct messaging directly into their product interface.

From the very beginning, our idea was how to incorporate social attributes into the product. Why? Because if you look at OKX, Binance, Bitget, Coinbase, MEXC, KuCoin, they are essentially cut from the same cloth, with UI interfaces that are just a re-skinned version of CZ's 2017 version, with no product differentiation; it's all about marketing.

However, true success requires taking a completely different path. Apple's slogan is "Be different, not better." If the reason users come to the platform is not because of some internet celebrity's calls, not because of ads, but because friends chat here, the people you follow create content here, and you can interact with content, earn money, this is a brand new moat. This is what we truly aim to achieve. The first time I saw the "live stream screen + real-time price chart" linkage on Pump, I realized this was an entirely new form of content, and I genuinely believe it will sweep the globe.

So, going back to your question, what we actually want to create is a hybrid, blending TikTok, Robinhood, Twitch, and Pump.Fun all together to form a super app, allowing Gen Z users to trade, create, and consume content simultaneously.

Because if you talk to people of my generation, many, especially those not fully occupied by work, spend a significant amount of time on TikTok. Many people spend up to eight hours a day on TikTok. I think just this number is already quite alarming, even somewhat unbelievable. But once you add a financial layer to this foundation—meaning, you're not just spending eight hours watching content but also able to trade that content, even financially invest in each piece of content—I think this will create something very special.

Twitch itself is not a profitable company, which is quite crazy. Considering its size on a global scale, its valuation is approximately between 480 billion and 500 billion USD, based on market estimates. Of course, it was acquired by Amazon. However, if you really take a deep look, it may fundamentally just be a way to help AWS generate revenue; its true value is not that significant.

Kick is the same; it doesn't make money at all and fundamentally serves as a way to funnel funds to Stake. So, when you truly look at the world, you will find that it is quite abnormal; many companies have not made much money. This is also why I think Pump is cool because it actually makes money, and its profit margin is also very high.

Delphi Digital: I think this point is particularly worth discussing in-depth. For example, during the ICO craze, many people were focused on the fact that these teams had nearly $2 billion in cash, and then they were targeting the streaming media industry. But hearing you say that, it's actually quite interesting because your goal isn't even Twitch or Kick, right? They are not inherently profitable companies worth pursuing.

What makes me even more curious is that you don't seem to be aiming to spend a lot of money signing those big streamers, like Kai Cenat or Aiden Ross, who cost a lot but have almost no return on investment. Your focus is instead on the other end — those creators and streamers who don't have much fame yet, giving them the opportunity to build an audience and earn money now. How do you see the role of streaming media in your strategy? For example, where does it stand in your goal to take down big platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and Twitch? Also, now that your token has launched, what will be the most important strategic focus in the near future?

Noah: First, I want to emphasize that the best product will always win. For example, in the case of Airbnb, Brian Chesky founded Airbnb, but around 2007, it gradually expanded to Europe. At that time, there were three brothers in Europe (I can't remember their names), who created an Airbnb "clone," and their market share in Europe was even larger than Airbnb's. Chesky started to panic and called his friends to discuss whether to acquire them or take some measures. It is said that he even called Mark Zuckerberg for advice, and Zuckerberg's suggestion was to ignore them, not to buy them, as the best product always wins.

I think this is the rule. If your product is significantly better than your competitors, users will eventually turn to you. So, I believe the first thing to do is to build Pump as a "product-driven" company. We must pay extreme attention to what users are doing, continuously collect feedback, communicate with users, understand their pain points and concerns, and then quickly iterate based on this feedback. Only in this way can we truly make the live streaming part of the business run independently.

Regarding the big streamers, of course, we are also considering them. However, many people may not know that we recently spent approximately $500,000 to purchase a batch of "Streamer Starter Kits." These kits include a camera, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and other equipment to help newcomers start streaming. If you reach out to us, we will screen and then send these kits to you. Because we don't want to spend a lot of money hiring ready-made big streamers to create content—the real key is whether the product can achieve PMF.

Looking back at the most successful products in history, Netflix, Amazon, and even Twitch, they didn't rely on advertising but on word-of-mouth marketing—friends telling friends. So our current focus is to support the first group of content creators, give them tools and opportunities, and enable them to produce their own content. Only then can we truly establish the initial user base.

Our current logic is that if a streamer can earn significantly more money on Pump than on other platforms, they will be attracted here in the first place to start creating content. These creators already have fans on Instagram, Twitter, or other social platforms, or they have friends who will naturally bring these people to Pump to consume content here, and that's when the network effect kicks in. Whether they are small streamers or big streamers doesn't really matter—as long as they find the product better, they will gradually bring people over, and the user base will gradually expand.

For Pump, the goal is clear: as more and more people accumulate fans and create more content, the logic remains the same—the more content there is, the more tokens will be generated; the more tokens there are, the more trading volume there will be because more high-quality tokens will appear in the market. This way, these streamers can not only bring in new streamers and creators but also bring in a whole new audience group—that other crypto companies have not been able to reach. For example, I have never seen anyone watch Kai Cenat's live stream because of Coinbase.

Another point is that users' dwell time on financial apps is actually very short. For example, on Bybit, you might check your positions, browse around a bit, but the average duration is not long, making it challenging to achieve real monetization. In contrast, on Facebook or Instagram, people swipe for hours every day. However, on Coinbase, you might just open it for a quick glance.

So our real focus is on PMF. First, get the streamers in, then drive more content creators to form a growing cycle. Even if only 10% or 5% of the viewers eventually convert into traders, it will drive the entire market expansion. Moreover, many of these people may have had no idea what cryptocurrency was before, but they came in because of the content, used the product, found it useful, and slowly stuck around.

Delphi Digital: I think your emphasis on content is particularly interesting. This is actually a topic that is often discussed internally at Delphi. For example, we have many colleagues who are very bullish on Zora; their goal is very similar to yours, but the approach is almost completely opposite. Zora starts with content and then attaches a token to it; whereas you start with a token and then use it to foster content.

So I am quite curious how you view your own model compared to Zora's model. Personally, the longer time goes on, the more I feel this idea makes sense. Because now we can easily control our diet, like what to eat, how to mix it, etc., but "information diet" is the hardest to control. When I scroll through my Twitter timeline, if I can come across one or two valuable pieces of content, I have to endure hundreds of boring posts and junk information. I think things like Pump or Zora might actually help filter out more valuable and relevant content for me.

Noah: Yes, because money ultimately points to what is truly valuable, whether it is because it is "viral" enough or because of the value of the information itself. I have actually deleted all social media apps from my phone because I really don't like these things. They will suck up all your energy. Those who endlessly scroll, to me, are in the worst state. If you really want to do that, you might as well let it bring some economic returns, rather than simply waste your life.

As for Zora, I think their team is great, they know what they are doing, and they are exploring a different niche field. I don't see it as a competitive relationship between us. But one point I have always emphasized is that you must focus on the current user, not the future user. We have also made similar mistakes in the product development process. When Pump initially launched, we wanted to directly impact the social media aspect from the beginning, but we skipped over many necessary steps. Now we have made strategic adjustments, focusing more on existing users, and then gradually leading them to the next stage.

If you look at the world's most successful products, such as Instagram, WhatsApp, Signal, and even Google, they have not undergone significant changes from their inception to the present. WhatsApp is almost the same product as it was over a decade ago, with only some very minor changes. Yet it is these minor changes that have allowed it to break users' "escape velocity" from tens of millions to one billion, and then to ten billion. For example, support for multiple languages, expanding the group chat limit to thousands of people, these seemingly insignificant updates can make a product leap forward.

So our approach to Pump is also the same, serving existing users well, and then continuously making small and precise improvements. For example, the "Creator Reward" we just launched today instantly increased the platform's live streaming numbers fivefold. Because of this small optimization, a huge effect was immediately generated.

Many people look up to Instagram and think they are amazing. But in reality, they mostly engage in replication — copying Snapchat's stories feature, copying its private messaging, and then copying TikTok's short videos. It may seem like a patchwork, but the underlying product architecture has never changed, only minor updates. Ultimately, this is the best path. For us, it's the same—small changes can lead to significant chain reactions.

Twitch is currently valued at around $500 billion, with simultaneous online viewers ranging from about 70,000 to 90,000 at any given time, based on the data I've seen over the past four months. And Pump's live streaming peak, even now, can reach 3% to 5% of their user base. If you casually do some "napkin math" and combine valuation and growth potential, things get very interesting.

That said, I still adhere to a "product-first" approach. You need to iterate constantly, grow slowly, rather than attempt a giant leap. You need to let users and viewers grow with the product, not the other way around.

Delphi Digital: I'm quite curious about those migrating broadcasters, what is their behavior pattern? What do you expect them to do? For example, will they only issue a single token and make it attractive? Or will they try different themes?

Noah: Let me interject, this point is crucial; we will not forcefully dictate user behavior. It's like if Elon actually acquired Twitch, he wouldn't require everyone to post content about elections or mandatory uploads of cable videos, right?

The beauty of social platforms is that you have to let creators have complete freedom of choice. It's more like a sandbox, where everyone can freely express themselves, create their own innovations. That's the most magical part because no one knows what it will ultimately develop into. It's very much like the early days of YouTube, it had a kind of magic of its own. Pump itself also has similar characteristics. For example, I remember a user running over with a paper under their chin. This completely unique content doesn't exist on other platforms, yet it can give rise to an entirely new niche area and use case.

So our logic is to build the "sandbox," let it grow on its own. Then we observe how some use it this way, some use it that way, what they need, and we invest more resources to support their goals.

For example, many people may not know that the reason we introduced the live streaming feature is because we pay special attention to our users. At that time, we noticed that users would gather in Telegram's voice channel to watch developers' live streams together. So why not directly integrate this scenario into the product? This way, we can enhance social connections within the platform.

Now, think about the app that everyone in the crypto industry uses. It's Telegram. Its usage frequency is even higher than Binance's. So if we can find an effective monetization method based on Telegram's usage habits, we can combine trading and social networking.

This should resonate with you VCs or LPs, right? Regardless of whether you are discussing large or small deals, you are essentially communicating on Telegram, aren't you? Twitter is more like a "public square" where everyone talks and collides with each other; but true friends, partners, and business relationships are all on Telegram. Therefore, it would be very exciting to build a more native experience for crypto users on Telegram.

For example, most of the bots on Telegram right now are quite crude and not user-friendly. But what if we could create some features that are truly tailored for traders and crypto users? For instance, a dedicated application to help VCs invest in larger projects or participate more conveniently in small-cap coins and Pump investments, combining this social experience with the trading experience would be very interesting.

Why are there so many institutions participating in Pump.Fun's ICO?

Noah: Additionally, I'd like to briefly discuss Pump.Fun's ICO. Many people wonder why Pump is collaborating with so many different partners and why certain large institutions are involved. There is actually a comprehensive consideration and process behind all of this...

What we are trying to do now is to create a truly "anti-monopoly" issuance platform, breaking the current market's singular structure. Currently, if you want to launch a token, the options are limited, mostly relying on those large token issuance platforms. However, in the future, we will definitely invest more efforts in building a platform that allows you to launch tokens in 10 different places simultaneously or conduct ICOs, making the entire process as simple and user-friendly as a one-click authorization delegation. This way, we can compete with giants like Coinbase in this area, which I find very interesting.

I may have digressed a bit, but speaking of Pump's development direction, if you look at the current product form, you will notice that as long as users are active on our interface, we can generate significant revenue and accumulate a large amount of funds to support various experiments; this is where the excitement lies.

Many people may not know that Pump.Fun has already locked over $1.6 billion worth of Solana in an LP pool, and these funds are permanently unwithdrawable because they have been sent to the mainnet's burn address. This means that even if all tokens on Pump to go to zero (which is highly unlikely), there will still be approximately $1.5 billion worth of Solana permanently locked in these pools. This obviously provides significant support for Solana's price.

This is a very interesting fact. Furthermore, if you look at the trading volume of these tokens on Pump, whether they are low-cap tokens or high-cap tokens that have already "graduated" to larger platforms, the daily trading volume is basically between $700 million and $1 billion.

Now, shifting the focus to the stablecoin market. The daily trading volume of USDT and USDC is indeed very large, as they are truly widely used base currencies. However, looking down the list, such as DAI, I don't even consider it a stablecoin because it lacks trading volume; fundamentally, it is a leverage product.

So theoretically, if we were to create our own stablecoin in the future — which may take at least another year — it could easily enter the top three stablecoins globally in terms of trading volume. Because trading volume signifies usage, and usage leads to growth. When you have an ecosystem used by hundreds of thousands or millions of users simultaneously, you can build a range of new products on this foundation, and these products often perform exceptionally well.

To be honest, I myself am still very young, as are the others in the team, only 21 years old. So, what can I do in the next twenty years? Our platform has indeed made a lot of money, but the more important question is what I will create in the next twenty years. I believe our plan is to build something that can have a long-term, global impact, which is the real direction our company wants to optimize and pursue.

Delphi Digital: There are many rumors in the outside world that you might be working on your own L1 or something similar. I am more curious about the stablecoin you mentioned, although it is not an immediate core target now, but it can be a direction or new product that can be expanded upon in the future on the platform. So I want to know, what other serious ideas has your team considered? Can you share some thoughts that you think can be communicated with the market? Of course, I understand that there are many copycats out there, so you may wish to be cautious.

Noah: Of course, I can share. I think we might be a bit blunt in this regard, but the overall vision is — Pump wants to be the most exciting place in the crypto world. At the same time, we also want to basically take over the entire world; that's the plan. So, everything you just mentioned, whether it's speculation or discussion, is indeed within our scope of consideration, and some are even in development.

Our goal is to thoroughly expand this thing, to swallow the entire crypto space and all products in an even broader scope. Absorb, acquire, crush — take it all down. That is the long-term plan for this product.

Delphi Digital: Another focus for everyone is that you still have a considerable amount of funds on your balance sheet. What are the specific plans for allocating these funds? For example, you mentioned before that you intended to invest in creators, and even set up a small fund specifically to buy back some tokens, perhaps to incentivize users and drive activities. I also want to know, what are your considerations regarding mergers and acquisitions? Are you more inclined to acquire which types of companies, in which areas, rather than building from scratch?

Noah: Exactly. I think the most crucial question is — having money is certainly great, and many companies do have substantial funds. But spending money is easy; spending it effectively is the hardest part. The truly successful companies are those that can achieve a "money begets money" scenario.

It may sound a bit silly, but this is the most basic issue. For example, if you spend $100 on an incentive program, and it brings in $120 in revenue, that is a truly effective investment. This is also the most challenging part to execute down to the details, requiring step-by-step implementation.

Don't forget, our benchmark platforms and competitors are giants like Binance, Coinbase, Hyperliquid, and USDT. They don't have $20 billion; they have $1 trillion, $2 trillion that they can use at any time to wipe you off the map. So cash, for us, is essentially a strategic resource that must be used to solidify our position and then gradually expand our influence.

I think there are many ways to achieve this goal. For example, through acquisitions, they don't necessarily have to be very large projects, but those that you believe will have a substantial impact on the business after the acquisition.

Alternatively, you can take a route similar to Facebook, with a large amount of cash on hand. Although Facebook's main business at the time was not making much money, it raised funds through an IPO, saw the rise of WhatsApp, saw the potential of Instagram, and was willing to pay a high price for acquisitions. The result was capturing the next wave of consumer trends, converting more users to its ecosystem, and driving the continued growth of the product.

So we have been constantly looking for those "small but crucial" things that may have a huge impact, even possibly being a standalone product, but ultimately being able to be integrated into our larger product family. At the same time, we are also constantly experimenting, such as spending money on various incentive measures, live streaming incentives, professional trading incentives; we have tried almost everything you can think of.

But the key is to conduct meticulous AB testing, often at a scale of millions of dollars, to validate what truly works and what doesn't. Once hotspots or potential solutions are identified, a large amount of capital is then invested to scale it up into exponential growth. That is the complete logic behind what we do.

However, it is crucial to emphasize once again that the most important takeaway is that capital is a weapon, and you must use it wisely. Blindly spending money does not equate to growth; smart spending is the key. Only then can you truly aim for a $500 billion or even $1 trillion market capitalization.

Delphi Digital: In the past two to three months, you must have had investors approaching you every week, right? Have you internally seriously considered such opportunities?

Noah: Indeed, we have considered it. I don't want to say too much at this point, but I can confirm that this is indeed a topic of discussion internally, to put it simply.

Discussing a16z's Refusal to Invest in Pump.Fun

Delphi Digital: That's great to hear. Now, regarding the buyback topic, in the past 30 days, you've conducted approximately $50 million in buybacks, mainly due to the initial ICO allocation ratio, which was later adjusted to almost 100% of daily revenue being used for token buybacks. There were market rumors earlier that you would commit to allocating 25% of revenue for buybacks, but after a few months, it changed again, now resembling more of Hyperliquid's model, where they are at around 97%. How do you plan to structure your buyback strategy in the future, and do you have any plans you can share?

Noah: The total amount of Pump buybacks is currently around $71 million, and so far, over 5.3% of the circulating supply has been repurchased. Initially, the platform conducted buybacks based on a 25% revenue ratio, if I remember correctly. Recently, it has evolved into nearly 100% of revenue being used for buybacks.

I believe that by observing successful case studies in this cycle, one can speculate on the future performance of crypto companies. For instance, Hyperliquid skyrocketed its token valuation to the $400 billion to $500 billion range by conducting buybacks with close to 100% of revenue.

Another example is Binance in its early days, where it also allocated 50% of revenue to directly burn BNB, though I can't recall the specific mechanism. For our Pump team, we will study the most successful platforms in the industry; their strategies have been proven effective, and we know what works and what doesn't.

During our early days of seeking investors, I tried multiple times to get in touch with Marc Andreessen. Through different friends, sending direct messages, and even having various angel investors make introductions, I was trying to have a conversation with him or with Andrew Horowitz from a16z. At that time, we perceived them as "holy grail-level" investors, believing that by securing their funding, they would provide pivotal assistance to our project. However, the reality turned out to be quite different.

As a side note to all entrepreneurs, money is just money. Except for a very few uniquely impactful investors, a VC's brand will hardly have any influence on your business outcomes. If you are solely pursuing a VC due to their reputation or seeking to associate your brand with them, it's completely unnecessary. Just ignore it. This was the first lesson I learned. When we tried to reach out back then, they outright rejected us, refusing to engage in discussions with us, citing that "you are into meme coins."

But this aspect is quite intriguing as well. On one hand, many traditional VCs, older-generation investors, simply do not comprehend what the younger generation is up to. If you were to ask those aged fifty or sixty, or even in their thirties or forties: "What is your child up to? What is my nephew doing? What is my intern up to?" They genuinely do not understand. However, if you were to actually go into the office and inquire with these young people, what they are usually doing in the crypto space? At least half of them would tell you that they are trading meme coins.

So, I believe it's time to change perspective: this might not just be a mere "meme coin phenomenon" but a larger cultural shift.

When we approached Andreessen back then, they rejected us, showing no interest, stating that "meme coins have no value." However, the irony is, if you look at some of the so-called hot projects, such as the Story Protocol—personally, I consider it the biggest scam I have ever witnessed. I was truly dumbfounded, utterly disbelief.

Yet, this very thing is now being packaged as the "most hyped project," with a slew of so-called top-tier investors endorsing it, such as a16z, Horowitz, and the like, when in reality, it's all just blatant daytime robbery.

I truly, vehemently despise this aspect of the crypto industry, where some individuals create products but pretend that they are revolutionary, pretend that they can change the world, pretend that they can attract millions of users, when in fact, nobody is using them.

It's essentially a few wealthy individuals coming together, pouring money in, pumping the token price, possibly involving market manipulation, fraud, and various malicious activities, then systematically draining money from retail investors, from those ordinary folks, young people looking to enter the market.

This perfectly illustrates why Pump is successful. Why are people willing to use Pump? Why are people willing to trade with fun picture tokens? It's because they have become thoroughly disillusioned with everything else—those things are just garbage.

This situation really surprises me. Because when you buy any coin on Pump, you are not being deceived, you know what it is, just a coin, purely for fun. Unlike some projects that claim to be about "interstellar interoperability" or similar crazy concepts but are actually blatant scams. What's scary is that people are still attracted to these shiny narratives, like "interoperability" and "zero-knowledge proofs." But do you know anyone who has actually used ZKSync? To me, this is just too scary.

This kind of scam has been going on in the industry for many years. They chant the slogan of "changing the world," deceive community members and investors to buy these tokens, but in the end? There isn't a single real user using their product. Can you blame people for trading tokens on Pump? Fundamentally, buying ZKSync and buying a Pump coin are actually the same.

And the fact is, if these Pump coins become big enough, and the projects are profitable enough, they can also create products, which are no different from the so-called infrastructure projects. The so-called "we all believe this will go to the moon" and "we all believe this will create a new interoperable chain" are essentially fundraising slogans. The only difference is that the latter comes with a bunch of strange lock-up clauses and dark, intricate financial engineering that transfer money from retail users to VC pockets.

Then you see those big institutional investors coming out, all talking about the "future of finance," but what they really do is just buy mansions by harvesting, passing on the burden to the young people who are actually driving this industry—In my opinion, it's the 20 to 30-year-olds who are truly creating interesting things.

I think if we take a step back to look—sorry, I'm getting off topic again—but if we look at it from a global perspective, there hasn't really been any groundbreaking innovation in the past twenty years.

The last product that truly changed a generation was probably something like Facebook, which indeed had a global impact. Of course, TikTok, Bitcoin, and even ChatGPT can be considered significant breakthroughs. But ultimately, it may just be a better version of Google. Well, indeed more advanced than that, but to what extent has it truly changed our lives?

This is the first question I think is worth asking: the world hasn't actually changed that much. If you look closely, you will find that it's quite scary. Next, you might ask, where are the young entrepreneurs and talents? Either they are working on various AI-packaged applications (the so-called ChatGPT shells), or they are in the crypto field.

This is also one of the reasons why I eventually entered the crypto space — because those young people I know who are under 25, or even under 22, those people I believe will change the world in the future, are either working on crypto or working on AI. And I can almost be certain that AI is largely overhyped. That's why crypto makes me feel more real.

This has also changed the way I see the world. Looking back at Silicon Valley back then, what were people like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and a group of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs doing twenty years ago? In fact, they were doing the same things we are doing today. Back then, they were trading stocks, trading concept stocks in the dot-com bubble, constantly telling stories and pumping, just like today's "coin launches." But when you extend the timeline by 25 years, 30 years, the companies these people created have become truly world-changing, enormously successful enterprises.

Another point I want to add is that some of the most successful, wealthiest people I have met spend a lot of time with young people. This is not strange, but rather they know where the future talent is. If you want to know where the world will go in the next 20, 30 years, you have to see what young people are doing now; that is the real "Alpha."

Delphi Digital: That's right, I completely agree, there are indeed many points worth expanding on here. In the past two to three years, when chatting with some "outsiders," I have increasingly felt this. Even if I tell them, "Just hold a basket of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and other top assets for the long term, it will definitely rise in the long run," their feedback is often, "But Bitcoin has already missed out on a hundredfold increase." — even though they also believe in the long-term value of Bitcoin.

Noah: People always think of "going up tenfold again," but how can you possibly hold on for a tenfold increase? That's impossible, right? I think every generation will create a whole new market, a whole new financial stage. For example, you may be ten years older than me, very successful in the crypto field. But why did you initially enter crypto instead of staying in traditional finance? It's because the previous generation of the "baby boomers" had already made a fortune by speculating on assets like Apple stocks. When they inflated the market value of these assets to the size of an African country, what else can you do? You can only seek out the next new thing. So, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polkadot, Cardano, and others were pumped up, allowing people aged 25 to 35 to get rich a few years ago.

But now, when these assets are trading at extremely high valuation levels, you have to create new things again to give young people the opportunity to get on board. Looking back at history, this pattern has never changed. In the 1980s, investment banks were the stage for "wealth creation"; later it was the Internet, where everyone flocked and created the giants of that era; and then it was crypto, and now it's AI.

Everything is actually just a "re-skinning." What you see today is fundamentally no different from the cycle 20 years ago. Think about it carefully, it's quite scary because it reflects the nature of human beings—repeating the same pattern over and over again. Speculating on my AI stock is no different from speculating on pets.com back then, is there a difference? Essentially, they are both the same trash, just dressed in the attire of a different era.

Delphi Digital: Interestingly, when we initially started Delphi, we were a fundamental research firm. So, I did get into memes quite late, and there were quite a few detours along the way. Later, a good friend of ours, Anson from Delphi, was perhaps the first to clearly explain this logic. His view was that the older generation buys lottery tickets with a one-in-a-million chance of winning, yet the lottery has become one of the world's largest industries. At the same time, the Z generation is playing "meme coin lottery." The difference is that they can increase their odds from one in a million to one in a thousand by integrating into culture, using TikTok, and capturing trends. That is the essence of meme coins—a more culturally connected "lottery."

Noah: Right, and the odds in crypto are much better than anywhere else in the world. This is not an empty statement; there is a reason behind it. Because more and more people are flocking in, this industry naturally attracts them. After all, this is one of the few places in the world where you can still make it on your own.

In other industries, everything is highly ossified. For example, I have some high school classmates who are now working in investment banks, but their lives are like slaves, enduring until they are 40 years old and still working for shareholder value. It's terrible.

And the reason why crypto is attractive, on the surface, is the narrative of decentralization, but I believe the deeper reason is: it gives you an opportunity to create something different for yourself, to truly create unique value. Of course, everyone can label crypto with various "new tags," such as "decentralized finance," but I think most of that is just noise. What is truly important is that crypto has captured the hearts of the younger generation. And that is the key. Because the reality is—the world of the next 20 to 30 years will ultimately be built by the younger generation.

What does the future of Pump.Fun look like?

Delphi Digital: Now, there is still a tricky issue where social media continuously reinforces an idea that you have no other way out, and the only way to turn things around is to "gamble." This narrative makes people feel like this is the only path. Looking ahead to the next few months, will live streaming be a major focus for you?

When people first saw the prototype of your live streaming feature, many immediately thought of an episode of Black Mirror, where individuals would do extreme things on live stream to earn money, such as pulling out their own fingernails. Although your mechanism is completely different from that, that was actually the initial question I wanted to ask. It's not about you controlling anything, but rather observing what content is popular and then supporting those ideas. So I'm curious, how do you see the development in the upcoming months?

Noah: First of all, I'd like to ask everyone listening to take out their phones, download the Pump mobile app, this is the first thing I would like you to do. Because all of our future focus will be "mobile-first." Why focus on mobile? The reason is simple, everyone has a phone in their pocket.

If I like TikTok, or I like any other app, sharing on mobile is much easier than on desktop. For some pure desktop applications, like Polymarket, spreading the word is much harder. But on mobile, achieving viral growth is much easier. And when I say "viral," I don't mean 2 million users, I don't mean 5 million users, I mean billions of users.

The beauty of software is that even a small change, like increasing the sharing rate by 5%, can lead to changes in the user base in the billions. So we will firmly take the mobile-first approach, making the product easier to go viral. At the same time, we will integrate with social media to ensure that every interaction, every post, and every transaction can be seen by more people, thus amplifying the impact.

Another interesting point is that Pump's revenue is already relatively stable, and user retention is strong, which gives me confidence. The question now is how to expand the market? How do we turn it from a "make $2 million a day" business into a "make $200 million a day" business? The answer is to find something that can drive growth faster.

Delphi Digital: I'm quite curious too. We've seen a lot of feedback on Crypto Twitter, especially around the time of your token launch, where people felt there wasn't enough communication. But recently, we've also noticed a significant shift - while focusing on the work, you've also started to communicate proactively. For example, you're willing to come on this podcast, and you're considering appearing on other shows, which is an important step in itself.

So I'm curious, what can token holders and the broader crypto community expect from Pump and your team? Whether it's short-term or the plans leading up to the end of this year?

Noah: Well, to be honest, the whole situation on the "Long" side could have been handled much better, and that was indeed a mistake on our part. But we have also learned from it, and that's one of the reasons why I'm here doing this podcast - we are making significant adjustments to our communication strategy, and this is very important.

My Twitter DMs are open, and Alon's Twitter DMs are also open. If you have any questions about our future plans, feel free to reach out to us directly. I promise to make time to chat with you, whether you have ideas or solutions. Just DM me, and I will explain our thinking and direction. I think it's our responsibility. If you look at those big companies, like Robinhood, a big part of their work is constantly communicating the vision to the world, and what we need to do now is just that.

Even now, I hope that listeners of this podcast can feel a different perspective and see where Alon and I might differ in our thinking. Our direction is the same; it's just the expression that's different. Ultimately, it's about more honest communication. Also, I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but this is actually a two-part podcast series. This is the first part, mainly discussing the future of crypto; next, there will be a second part, focusing on how to truly go mainstream.

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