The Pump.fun Era Ended in May 2026
For two years, Pump.fun was the only answer to "where do I launch a Solana memecoin." On May 12, 2026, that changed. LetsBONK.fun overtook Pump.fun in daily new-token volume, and within days Believe pushed ahead of both, briefly making Pump.fun the third-largest launchpad on its own chain.
This post breaks down the four launchpads now sharing the market, what each one does differently, and which one a creator launching today should actually pick.
[stats]
Active launchpads | 4+ | Up from 1
LetsBONK daily growth | 600% | Early 2026
Boop launch day tokens | 10,800 | May 1
Pump.fun cumulative revenue | $1B+ | Since 2024
[/stats]
The Four Players
Pump.fun
Still the largest by cumulative revenue. In Q1 2026, Pump.fun generated $124.7M, driving over a third of Solana's app revenue. Its model is the original: a flat bonding curve, automatic graduation to a Raydium pool at $69k market cap, no creator fees, simple UI.
In late April 2026 the team executed a $370M PUMP token burn (36% of circulating supply) and committed 50% of net revenue to ongoing buybacks. That stabilized the token but did not reverse the market-share slide.
LetsBONK.fun
Built by Graphite Protocol in collaboration with Raydium's LaunchLab and the BONK ecosystem. Tokens that graduate go straight into Raydium liquidity pools with creator-friendly fee splits. The BONK community heavily promoted it through Twitter campaigns and trading-bot integrations, which is what produced the 600% revenue surge in early 2026.
On May 12, LetsBONK overtook Pump.fun in daily volume for the first time. The lead lasted about a week before Believe pulled ahead.
Believe App
The most architecturally different of the four. Believe uses a SocialFi launch model where creators trigger a token by replying to specific X posts from the Launchcoin account. The user does not need a wallet to start the launch. Settlement happens on Solana afterward.
This model produces a steady stream of low-effort launches but also a much higher rate of legitimate creators because the social attribution makes pseudonymous rugs harder. Believe pulled ahead of LetsBONK in mid-May 2026.
Boop.fun
The newest entrant, launched May 1, 2026. Built by the founder of PancakeSwap, Boop.fun calls its tokens "cults" and produced 10,800 tokens on its launch day, accounting for 26.3% of all Solana token launches that day. The differentiator is creator-side economics: creators earn from every swap forever, not just the initial bonding-curve fee.
Creator Economics Compared
Where the difference matters most. Here is what a creator gets paid on each platform, per launch.
The shift from Pump.fun's zero-creator-fee model to LetsBONK and Boop's "creator earns forever" model is the single biggest reason creator mindshare moved. A token that does $1M in lifetime volume returns roughly $10,000 in fees to its LetsBONK creator. The same token on Pump.fun returns the creator nothing.
Graduation Mechanics
The other dimension that matters: where does your token end up when the bonding curve completes?
- Pump.fun: graduates to Raydium AMM at $69k market cap. Liquidity is added by the protocol and LP is burned.
- LetsBONK: graduates to Raydium LaunchLab pool at 85 SOL raised. LP is burned automatically. Creator keeps a 10% share of LP fees through Raydium's locker.
- Believe: graduates to Solana DEX after a confirmed social attribution window. Liquidity routes through Jupiter.
- Boop: graduates to PumpSwap-style internal book first, then to Raydium when volume warrants.
For a trader, this matters because it determines where the token lives long-term. For a creator, it matters because the LP fee structure is set at graduation and cannot be changed after.
Distribution and Discoverability
A token is only as good as the people who see it. The four platforms differ sharply in distribution.
Pump.fun has the largest archive: every wallet that ever traded a memecoin in the last two years has it bookmarked. Discoverability inside the platform is poor, but external traders find tokens via DexScreener and Jupiter regardless.
LetsBONK leverages the BONK community for organic promotion. Tokens that ship there get cross-posted to BONK channels by default, which is worth a few hundred organic eyeballs on launch.
Believe's SocialFi model means every launch starts with at least one Twitter post visible to the launcher's audience. This is a massive distribution advantage for creators who already have a following. For anonymous creators, it is a worse mechanism than Pump.fun.
Boop is still finding its footing. The launch-day numbers are impressive, but sustained discoverability after week one is unproven.
Which One to Pick
A simple decision tree for a creator launching today:
You want maximum reach and don't care about LP fees: Pump.fun. The audience is still the largest.
You want recurring income from your token: LetsBONK. The 10% LP fee in perpetuity is the best creator economics in the market.
You have a Twitter audience already: Believe. The social-attribution mechanism turns followers into buyers.
You want to experiment with a new mechanism: Boop. The bonding curve is the most aggressive and the platform is new enough that early launches sometimes get featured.
You want a custom tokenomic structure, custom decimals, or full control from minute one: skip launchpads entirely and deploy direct via ManagerNest's Token Creator. Deploy time is 60 seconds, fee is 0.15 SOL, and you keep 100% of the supply you mint. Then run an analyzer scan on your own mint immediately so DexScreener verifies you on day one.
What This Means for Traders
If you trade memecoins, the launchpad split changes how you screen tokens. The "is this from Pump.fun" filter no longer tells you whether the token is worth a look. New tactics:
- Watch graduation events across all four platforms via DexScreener's "new pairs" filter.
- Cross-reference mint authority and freeze authority before buying. Run the mint through a token analyzer and check the score. Each platform has different post-graduation defaults.
- LetsBONK and Believe tokens tend to have longer survival half-lives than Pump.fun. Boop is too new to know.
The June 2026 Outlook
The launchpad wars are not over. Two predictions:
- Pump.fun will respond. A team sitting on $1B in cumulative revenue does not lose the lead quietly. Expect a creator-economics overhaul before Q3.
- Believe's SocialFi model will spawn copies. The mechanism is novel enough that we will see at least two more SocialFi launchpads by year-end.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did Pump.fun actually lose the lead?
Yes. On May 12, 2026, LetsBONK overtook it in daily new-token volume. Believe overtook LetsBONK shortly after.
Is LetsBONK's 10% creator fee real?
Yes. It comes from Raydium LP fees post-graduation. The creator address is hardcoded into the pool at deployment and cannot be changed.
Can I migrate a Pump.fun token to LetsBONK?
No. Each launchpad is a separate deployment. You can deploy a new token on LetsBONK and burn your Pump.fun one, but you cannot move the same mint between platforms.
What about LaunchLab?
LaunchLab is the underlying Raydium product. LetsBONK is one of several front-ends built on top of it. If you want to use LaunchLab directly without the BONK branding, you can.