98.6% Of Pump.fun Tokens Are Rug Pulls, Solidus Labs Reports

On May 7, 2025, blockchain compliance firm Solidus Labs published its comprehensive 2025 Rug Pull Report, delivering a damning assessment of the Solana memecoin ecosystem. The report found that 98.6% of the more than 7 million tokens launched on Pump.fun — Solana's dominant memecoin launchpad — have been rug pulls or pump-and-dump schemes. Of those millions of tokens, only approximately 97,000 maintained liquidity above $1,000, meaning the vast majority were created solely to extract value from buyers before being abandoned. The report examined the mechanics of these scams in detail. On Pump.fun, token creators typically launch a new memecoin, promote it through social media and Telegram groups to generate buying pressure, then liquidate their holdings once sufficient liquidity accumulates — often within hours or even minutes. The median rug pull on the associated Raydium exchange involved approximately $2,832 in losses per transaction, while the largest single rug pull identified was MToken, which drained $1.9 million from investors. Solidus Labs also analyzed 388,000 Raydium liquidity pools and found that approximately 93% (361,000 pools) exhibited soft rug pull characteristics, including slow liquidity withdrawals designed to avoid detection. The scale of fraud extends beyond Pump.fun alone. In a related incident, the M3M3 memecoin launched on the Meteora platform resulted in a $69 million rug pull that prompted a class-action lawsuit filed in April 2025. Average daily trading volume on Pump.fun exceeds $100 million, providing a massive pool of retail capital for scammers to exploit. A separate Merkle Science report published in February 2025 found that $500 million was lost to rug pulls and scams across all platforms in 2024, suggesting the problem is accelerating rather than improving. In May 2025 alone, rug pull losses on Solana totaled approximately $45 million across six major incidents, outpacing all DeFi exploit losses ($19.7 million) for the same period. Pump.fun's response to the report was dismissive. Spokesperson Troy Gravitt stated that Solidus Labs lacks a basic understanding of memecoins, arguing that most failed tokens represent legitimate speculative experiments rather than intentional fraud. However, this framing contradicts the report's methodology, which specifically identified patterns consistent with coordinated market manipulation — including pre-arranged wallet clusters, immediate liquidity removal, and social media pump campaigns tied to known scam operators. Investors must approach Solana memecoins with extreme skepticism. Before buying any newly launched token on Pump.fun or similar launchpads, check the token creator's wallet history on Solscan (solscan.io) for patterns of serial token launches followed by quick dumps. Verify that liquidity is locked and for how long. Check the token's holder distribution — if the top 10 wallets control more than 50% of supply, the risk of a coordinated dump is severe. The statistical reality is stark: with a 98.6% fraud rate, participating in the Pump.fun memecoin market is closer to playing a rigged lottery than making an investment. The 1.4% of tokens that survive represent the exception, not the rule.