Pump.fun introduces cashback system for traders as memecoin market faces downturn
The new incentive structure arrives after extensive backlash highlighting that most Pump.fun users were struggling to achieve profitability or even recover their initial investments.
The Solana-powered memecoin platform Pump.fun has introduced a novel feature designed to redistribute incentives toward memecoin purchasers instead of token deployers — representing an adjustment to their commission structure that once brought in more than $15 million in revenue during a single 24-hour period at the height of its popularity.
Through a Tuesday announcement on X, Pump.fun revealed that creators using the platform now have the option to determine if their token actually warrants Creator Fees, or if it would be more appropriate to allocate those rewards to users trading the token via a new "Cashback Coins" mechanism.
The platform's initial framework incorporated Creator Fees, which provided token developers with 0.3% of all revenue generated from the tokens they deployed on the platform.
Nevertheless, Pump.fun explained that not every token merits Creator Fees due to the fact that numerous tokens experience success independently of any organized team or project leadership, which results in token deployers receiving disproportionately high rewards.
"Now, traders can choose to engage with tokens they feel the most aligned with, ultimately letting the market decide who gets rewarded and where the bar is set."
According to Pump.fun, token developers are required to select between the Creator Fees option or the Trader Cashback framework prior to initiating their launch. After making this selection, the choice becomes permanent and cannot be reversed.
Terminal, a cryptocurrency trading interface integrated within Pump.fun, explained that Cashback Coins are created with every transaction executed and can only be obtained through the Terminal platform.
The announcement arrives as experts from the blockchain analytics company Santiment stated on Friday that memecoins appear to be displaying indicators of a possible market bottom.
"This collective acceptance of the 'end of the meme era' is a classic capitulation signal," Santiment stated, noting that whenever a particular market segment is entirely dismissed, it frequently represents the "contrarian time" to begin monitoring closely.
Pump.fun fees have fallen over the last year
The platform's new incentive system debuts as Pump.fun registered $31.8 million in fees throughout January, representing a 75.6% decline from the $148.1 million recorded in January 2025 — which remains the platform's highest-performing month on record.
So far in February, Pump.fun has generated $15.6 million, positioning it to underperform compared to its January figures.
The modification to the platform's incentive structure additionally comes after extended periods of criticism pointing out that merely a small fraction of users were generating profits on Pump.fun, whereas the overwhelming majority of individual traders were experiencing financial losses.
Analytics from Dune Analytics reveals that among the 58.7 million cryptocurrency wallets that have engaged with Pump.fun, just 4.76 million have realized profits ranging from $1,000 to $10,000, while 969,780 wallets have recorded gains falling between $10,000 and $100,000.
Fewer than 13,700 Pump.fun wallets have achieved millionaire standing through the platform.
The newly introduced feature garnered positive reactions from numerous members of the Pump.fun community, though others, including X user Coos, questioned whether the incentive structure might diminish motivation for developers to continue promoting newly launched tokens:
"So devs have less reasons to push coins longer, as the most lucrative time is when coins are still on pf, and have just graduated where there is the most volume."
Coinbase's Base shut down its Creator Rewards offering
As Pump.fun has restructured its incentive program, other platforms have completely discontinued their reward offerings.
On Feb. 10, the Base App from Coinbase terminated its Creator Rewards initiative as part of a strategic realignment to concentrate exclusively on assets that can be traded.
The Creator Rewards initiative was established in July and aimed to transform the Ethereum layer-2 network Base into a more socially-oriented ecosystem, where user engagement would result in financial compensation.
According to the Base App X account, the program distributed approximately $450,000 to 17,000 content creators throughout a seven-month period, with available data indicating that creators received an average payment of $26.