Raydium, a decentralized exchange (DEX) and autonomous market maker (AMM) on the Solana ecosystem, is said to be developing its own token launchpad, similar to Pump—popularly known as pump.fun.
This comes from a report from media publication Blockworks that an anonymous core contributor at Raydium confirmed the rumor.
The Reason
According to the anonymous contributor, Raydium began developing a token launchpad months ago but did not move forward because it “didn’t want teams to feel Raydium was competing with them directly.” Being on the same blockchain, Raydium and Pump have a partnership for token liquidity.
However, less than a month ago, Pump announced it would launch its own AMM, called PumpSwap, and would no longer use Raydium. AMMs facilitate decentralized trading through the use of smart contracts and liquidity pools. Most DEXs also function as AMMs.
Introducing PumpSwap, Pump’s new native DEX
beginning NOW all coins that complete their bonding curve will migrate directly to PumpSwap
PumpSwap enables
– instant migrations
– 0 migration fees (down from 6 SOL)
– more liquidity
– creator revenue sharing (coming soon)& more 👇 pic.twitter.com/T9BkmmaVVS
— pump.fun (@pumpdotfun) March 20, 2025
Before PumpSwap, when a token was launched on Pump, and its market cap reached $69,000, some of the token’s liquidity was deposited into Raydium’s trading pools and burned.
These memecoins launched on Pump can then be migrated on Raydium for secondary market trading. According to Blockworks, 44% of Raydium’s swap fee revenue over the past 30 days came from these tokens launched on Pump.
The New Launchpad
Raydium is set to release “LaunchLab,” which Blockworks called a fork of Pump. In blockchain, a fork is a copy of another blockchain with the same technical features, but modified to offer new products. One of the most popular examples is Bitcoin and its fork, Bitcoin Cash.
LaunchLab is expected to offer linear, exponential, and logarithmic bonding curves that match token demand and pricing and will also allow third-party users to set their own fees.
Additionally, the new launchpad will support multiple quote tokens beyond $SOL and will integrate with Raydium’s AMM liquidity provider locker, which lets issuers secure swap fees for tokens in perpetuity.
According to the anonymous contributor, LaunchLab will be the first in a broader “suite of tools” Raydium plans to release for token creation. However, they emphasized that it is not meant to replace Pump as a major launchpad in Solana.
What Could Happen?
Raydium’s new token launchpad, alongside Pump, means launching meme coins—or cryptocurrencies with no use case—is now more accessible.
In fact, crypto analyst Miles Deutscher claimed that meme coins launched on Pump prevented a broader rally of altcoins or top tokens outside of $BTC, as speculative capital that might have gone into the top 200 assets instead flowed into low-cap, on-chain tokens.
In 2024 alone, the total market cap of meme coins reached $140 billion, representing 11.21% of the crypto market.
However, meme coins are a type of cryptocurrency whose value depends solely on community hype. They have no practical use cases, unlike $BNB for paying exchange fees or $ETH for covering transaction fees.
As a result, many meme coins drop in value once the hype fades—even those endorsed by presidents.
According to a report by ChainPlay, a blockchain gaming hub, and Storible, a digital PR agency, nearly 80% of crypto investors have bought president-endorsed meme coins such as $TRUMP, $CAR and $LIBRA.
Meanwhile, #CryptoPH Thought Leader Luis Buenaventura compared meme coins to past trends like initial coin offerings (ICOs) in 2017 and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in 2021, expressing skepticism about their long-term impact on the crypto market.
“I feel like meme coin creation platforms will see a similar kind of fade over time.”
Luis Buenaventura, #CryptoPH Thought Leader
But while Buenaventura sees limited future value in meme coins, Nic Carter, an analyst and founder of Castle Island Ventures, was more blunt.
“Meme coins are unquestionably over,” Carter said, arguing that insider dominance, bot exploitation, and prelaunch deals have turned the space into an unfair and extractive market.
This article is published on BitPinas: Raydium’s New LaunchLab Could Challenge Pump.fun in the Meme Coin Wars
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