**Solana Officially Promotes Time.fun**
On February 24, the time tokenization platform Time.fun officially launched on Solana, and the Solana official team quickly provided strong support, with Solana co-founder Toly even mentioning it in a tweet, significantly increasing market exposure. This action not only serves as a robust response to the liquidity drain caused by Pump.fun but also represents another exploratory growth effort following the turmoil in the Solana ecosystem caused by celebrity token launches.
**Pump.fun Aims to “Flip the Table,” Escalating the Crisis in the Solana Ecosystem**
After scandals involving celebrity tokens like Libra, liquidity in Solana rapidly evaporated, leading to sustained pessimism in market sentiment. As a crucial flow engine for the Solana ecosystem in this cycle and an “ATM” on-chain, the Pump.fun protocol is currently struggling to maintain liquidity, compounded by multiple factors such as self-built AMM rumors, ongoing token sell-offs, and uncertainties from regulatory lawsuits, which have also drawn the Solana team’s “displeasure.”
In January of this year, Pump.fun’s business, despite ongoing growth, was unfortunate enough to face a lawsuit. According to a report by Bloomberg Law at the time, Pump.fun was hit with a class-action lawsuit, accused of violating U.S. securities laws by marketing and issuing unregistered, highly volatile meme coins, exposing investors to significant financial risks while collecting nearly $500 million in fees. This lawsuit has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, with the plaintiffs describing it as “a new evolution of a Ponzi scheme and pump and dump.”
Shortly thereafter, two U.S. law firms, Burwick Law and Wolf Popper, also sued Pump.fun, demanding that the platform remove tokens using its intellectual property without permission, including its logo and name.
Worse still, with the MEME trend “cooling down,” Pump.fun, as the primary victim of this wave of impact, has seen both its graduation rate and trading volumes significantly decline, further affecting the overall activity within the Solana ecosystem.
Data from The Block shows that as of February 24, the graduation rate of Pump.fun tokens transferred to Raydium was only 0.96%, a 54.7% drop from the historical peak of 2.12%. Meanwhile, on-chain transactions for Pump.fun have also cooled dramatically, with the average daily trading volume plummeting from a peak of $3.13 billion in January to $190 million as of February 24, a staggering decline of 93.9%. Furthermore, regarding protocol fee revenue, DefiLlama data indicates that as of February 25, Pump.fun’s protocol fee revenue was $2.45 million, down nearly 84.1% from its historical peak of $15.38 million on January 25.
The substantial downturn in business has forced Pump.fun to explore more products. However, some of these initiatives are undoubtedly a heavy blow to Solana, which has not yet recovered. Earlier this month, crypto KOL Hebi (@hebi555) revealed on X that Pump.fun intends to adopt a Dutch auction model for public offerings on multiple centralized exchanges (CEX). Although Pump.fun co-founder Alon denied this rumor, claiming that news about potential tokens was untrue, many industry insiders have questioned this response. For instance, Wu said that the blockchain publicly pointed out Alon’s dishonesty, with several listed companies confirming Pump.fun’s token issuance plan, stating that they could publicly share relevant preparatory documents upon obtaining permission.
If Pump.fun ultimately issues tokens, it will undoubtedly have a massive impact on the Solana market, especially given the already tight liquidity, which will likely lead to even greater capital outflows. Moreover, Pump.fun has earned substantial income through trading fees, even ranking as the 10th largest company globally in 2024 with annual revenue of $1 billion.
According to Onchain Lens monitoring, Pump.fun has accumulated approximately 2.99 million SOL, currently valued at about $431 million, and its continuous cash-out activities have also exerted considerable selling pressure on SOL tokens.
More concerning is that Pump.fun recently intends to “flip the table.” On February 24, market rumors surfaced that Pump.fun is conducting internal tests for a self-developed AMM (Automated Market Maker) liquidity pool, leading the community to speculate that it may launch its own swap platform to replace third-party suppliers like Raydium, in order to extract more trading fees. This move has generally been perceived by the community as overly greedy.
If the news proves true, it would undoubtedly strike a heavy blow to DEXs on Solana, given that DEXs like Raydium and Jupiter have absorbed a significant amount of liquidity from Pump.fun, and these DEXs are also liquidity hubs within the Solana ecosystem. Compounding the issue, platforms like Raydium and Jupiter have recently been implicated in the Libra scandal regarding insider token issuance.
Following this news, CoinGecko data indicates that since the announcement of Pump.fun’s AMM, the price of Raydium’s token RAY has plummeted by 40.9%, although the overall market downturn has also contributed to this decline.
In response to Pump.fun’s potential complete abandonment of Raydium, InfraRAY, a core contributor to Raydium, stated that this represents a “strategic miscalculation,” questioning whether Pump.fun can replicate its existing success. He also pointed out that if Pump.fun shifts to a new AMM, it may face multiple risks, including insufficient infrastructure, low demand for token migration, and inadequate trading volume in the initial launch phase.
It is noteworthy that the Solana Foundation invested in Raydium and Jupiter in October 2020 and March 2021 respectively, and Pump.fun’s “going solo” move undoubtedly touches the interests of the Solana Foundation, adding greater uncertainty to the Solana ecosystem.
“Those who disrupt the market for maximum profit extraction may reap what they sow. But companies that create quality products, charge transparent fees, and compete for users are doing great. Their revenue should motivate you to compete for and capture their market share,” Toly’s latest tweet has been interpreted by the community as a criticism of Pump.fun.
**Empowered by the MEME Core, Time.fun Receives Strong Support from Solana Official**
As one of the key drivers for Solana’s turnaround, MEME has now shifted its support to Time.fun, which has emerged as a similar new product officially endorsed by Solana following the betrayal from Pump.fun.
Time.fun, also a product originating from AllianceDAO, is a time tokenization platform similar to the previously popular Friend.tech, allowing creators to tokenize time and sell it as tradable tokens. Initially, this product was based on the Base network but announced its migration to Solana on November 2024. At that time, Time.fun co-founder 0xKawz stated,
“Over the past year, Solana has achieved significant advantages in many aspects. In contrast, Ethereum’s ecosystem feels fatigued, often overly focused on technology and seeming arrogant. The atmosphere on Ethereum resembles a group of aloof philosophers. If Ethereum does not address its cultural issues, as more developers like Time.fun choose to migrate, Solana will gradually dominate.”
On February 24 of this year, after officially migrating to the Solana network, Time.fun first publicly promoted a MEME token named “Toly’s Minutes” on X. This tweet also received a reply from Toly himself, who remarked that time is fun, and business communication is his favorite application case in crypto. This statement propelled the market cap of the Toly token to soar.
Subsequently, Toly released over ten tweets regarding Time.fun, clearly showing his support. In addition to Toly, Solana co-founder Raj Gokal and Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz also participated in the promotion of Time.fun.
For Solana, Time.fun shares similar mechanics with Pump.fun, both having a MEME core, and support for this product may continue this trend. At the same time, Time.fun has adopted a celebrity token issuance model with a verification mechanism, which somewhat reduces the common rug pull risks seen in previous celebrity meme coin chaos.
According to The Block, Time.fun founder Kawz mentioned that they will consider issuing the platform’s own token in the future. If other platforms are constructed on the basis of tokenizing time, a platform-based token could connect them all together. However, Kawz also admitted that discussing Time.fun tokens at this stage is premature, as the platform must first find product-market fit, and the key goal is to make tokenized time composable for use on other platforms built on Time.fun.
He pointed out that Time.fun’s true long-term objective is to create a new asset class, allowing people to own others’ time, trade it, and utilize it for various products and services.
**Ecosystem Faces Decline, Yet Key Indicators Remain Strong**
Recently, the Solana ecosystem has encountered numerous challenges, with a constant stream of market FUD.
On one hand, after the cooling of MEME on Solana, its market capitalization has been halved. CoinGecko data indicates that as of February 26, the market capitalization of MEME on Solana was $8.64 billion, down from nearly $15 billion at its January peak.
At the same time, a massive SOL unlock is imminent, bringing liquidity pressure. A total of 11.2 million SOL will be unlocked for circulation on March 1, marking the largest token unlock in history (valued at $2 billion).
According to crypto analyst Artchick.eth, over the next three months, more than 15 million SOL (approximately $2.5 billion) will enter circulation, most of which were purchased by institutions such as Galaxy Digital, Pantera Capital, and Figure via FTX auctions at $64 per SOL. Several VCs still hold substantial profits.
Trader RunnerXBT pointed out that Galaxy Digital, Pantera, and Figure hold unrealized profits of $3 billion, $1 billion, and $150 million on SOL, respectively. The market speculates that these institutions may liquidate their holdings, and the recent endorsement of the meme coin LIBRA by Argentine President Milei has intensified market panic.
Data also clearly reflects the pressures faced by the Solana ecosystem. Artemis data shows that as of February 24, the number of daily active addresses on Solana was also 5.3 million, down more than 34.5% from this year’s peak; daily trading volume has also dropped significantly from this year’s high of $27.7 billion, down 62.1% to $10.5 billion.
Among them, the decline in DEX trading volume is particularly noticeable; although it still ranks second among all chains, it has declined by 89.9% from January’s peak. Additionally, the price of the SOL token has dropped by 46.2% from this year’s peak of $262.6.
These figures reflect a clear decline in the activity and market enthusiasm of the Solana ecosystem. Nevertheless, Solana still performs outstandingly in many key indicators. According to Artemis data, as of February 24, Solana leads with 5.3 million daily active addresses, surpassing Ethereum, NEAR, SUI, and Aptos.
In terms of transaction counts, Solana’s daily transactions reach an astounding 56.5 million, far outpacing other chains, which only see a few million transactions or even less. In terms of Total Value Locked (TVL), Solana’s TVL stands at $7.3 billion, second only to Ethereum and exceeding Sui, Avalanche, and Aptos.
Furthermore, Solana has several potential positive factors, such as expectations for SOL spot ETF applications and the opening of the Solana inflation model amendment proposal SIMD-0228, which may inject more confidence and liquidity into Solana.