The launchpad war, by the numbers
StonkFun out-earned pump.fun, drew a wave of allegations, then lost its X account. Holders say pump.fun did it. The numbers put the events in a different order.
For most of September, pump.fun had company. StonkFun, a launchpad where a new coin can be paired with anything from SOL to a tokenized S&P 500 share, matched pump.fun's revenue in the second week of the month, according to Blockworks. Pump.fun shipped custom pairs and holder rewards within days.
By DefiLlama's count, StonkFun took in more than pump.fun's launchpad every day from 19 to 23 September. On the 21st it out-earned the launchpad and PumpSwap together, $1.81 million to $1.73 million. That afternoon an account called MidCurveMortal posted that StonkFun's fee wallet had sold almost $50 million of the ecosystem's tokens, on top of a 5% tax. STONK's price peaked the same day.
The next day the on-chain analytics firm Bitquery checked the post. The wallet had sold $56.3 million, but it had paid $56.2 million back to holders as rewards, and the tax was 1% or 3%, not 5%. Bitquery also found $1.41 million in reward payments outside the payout ledger, sent to wallets it ties to StonkFun's creator and treasury. We have not found an explanation for that money.
On the 25th MidCurveMortal went further, with a thread alleging that more than $7 million in holder rewards had gone to the team and insider wallets across three StonkFun coins: $GP, $ZCAT and $KNOTS. We checked his evidence. The 33 transactions he cites are real and match his descriptions. But the 30 biggest wallets he flagged were not funded by StonkFun's creator, treasury or platform wallets; their first SOL came mostly from exchanges, and most had months or years of history. StonkFun's revenue fell every day that week, to $583,000 on the 26th, while pump.fun's launchpad jumped to $2 million. PUMP's price had turned on the 24th.
On the afternoon of the 27th, StonkFun's X account, @LaunchOnSF, with 54,000 followers, was suspended. By that night it was back online; neither X nor StonkFun has said why. The replies found a suspect within the hour. One holder wrote that pump.fun was "definitely behind it." Another laid out a sequence: the revenue flip, the threads, the STONK top, the suspension, the PUMP bottom.
Part of that sequence is real. The revenue flip and the first thread did land on the same day. The order is the problem. STONK topped on the 21st, PUMP bottomed on the 24th, and the account went dark on the 27th, after both markets had turned. X's notice names no rule and no reporter, and nothing public ties pump.fun to it.
By evening a trader had launched a coin on StonkFun called DumpFun, pledging to "expose PumpFun." The launchpad war now has its own memecoin.
- Who reported @LaunchOnSF to X, and for which rule. X's suspension notice gives neither.
- Why @LaunchOnSF was suspended, and why it came back. It was restored by the evening of the 27th with no public explanation from X or StonkFun.
- What the $1.41 million in off-ledger reward payments was for.
- Whether any of the 316 wallets MidCurveMortal flagged are controlled by StonkFun's team. The 30 largest show no team funding in their first transactions; the other 286 are unchecked.
- Whether MidCurveMortal has any tie to pump.fun. Accusers say so; he has denied it.
Who earned more
daily revenue, UTC days · StonkFun ahead in orange| Day | StonkFun | pump.fun launchpad | Launchpad + PumpSwap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 19 | $1.13M | $1.05M | $1.50M |
| Sep 20 | $1.08M | $1.04M | $1.47M |
| Sep 21 | $1.81M | $1.25M | $1.73M |
| Sep 22 | $1.58M | $1.25M | $1.70M |
| Sep 23 | $1.37M | $1.15M | $1.61M |
| Sep 24 | $1.19M | $1.21M | $1.65M |
| Sep 25 | $944k | $1.23M | $1.71M |
| Sep 26 | $583k | $2.00M | $2.81M |
The claims, checked
who said it, and what the evidence shows“The exact day $STONK revenue flips $PUMP, multiple Pump influencers release threads on made up Stonk FUD”
The timing holds for one day. On 21 Sep StonkFun out-earned pump.fun's launchpad and PumpSwap combined, the only day that week it did, and MidCurveMortal's first fee-wallet post went up that afternoon. StonkFun had already been out-earning the launchpad alone since at least 19 Sep. Whether MidCurveMortal counts as a pump.fun influencer is disputed; he denied working for pump.fun.
“The STONK fee wallet has sold almost $50M of ecosystem tokens, including $8M worth of $ZCAT”
Bitquery counted $56.3M sold between 23 Aug and 22 Sep, $8.47M of it ZCAT. It also found $56.2M paid back to holders as rewards, so the selling mostly funded payouts rather than draining the ecosystem.
“This strategy is being carried out on top of their existing 5% tax”
Bitquery found the tax is 1% or 3% depending on the coin, not 5%. It did find $1.41M in reward payments outside the payout ledger, sent to wallets tied to StonkFun's creator and treasury. The transfers in MidCurveMortal's own evidence show it too: each arrives 3% short (1,000,000 sent, 970,000 received).
“More than $7M in holder rewards were allegedly claimed by the STONK team + insider-linked wallets”
He scanned 528 wallets across $GP, $ZCAT and $KNOTS and published an evidence index. We checked it. All 33 transactions it cites are real and match his descriptions. We then traced the 30 largest flagged wallets, 10 per coin. None was funded by StonkFun's creator, treasury or platform wallets in its first transactions. Their first SOL came mostly from exchange and service wallets (one from Binance, his own 'anchor' wallet from Coinbase), and 10 of the 30 were created in the five weeks before the buying; one had fewer than 100 transactions. That doesn't rule out insiders, but the link to the team the claim depends on isn't in the evidence.
“The Stonk price tops”
STONK's highest four-hour close in the window was about $0.39, on 21 Sep. It traded near $0.27 on the 27th, about 31% lower.
“And now Stonk X account is suspended… and pump price bottoms”
PUMP did bottom, but three days earlier. Its lowest four-hour close was about $0.0038 on 24 Sep. It was up about 16% by the start of the 27th, and rose another 14% that day.
“Pumpfun is definitely behind it... they're trying to report and make our X account suspended”
The account is suspended; the cause is not public. X's notice names no rule and no reporter. Pump.fun cofounder @a1lon9's posts that week don't mention StonkFun or the suspension, and no one has shown who filed a report.
The coins
Sources
- onchain DefiLlama: StonkFun fees and revenue
- onchain DefiLlama: pump.fun fees and revenue
- researcher Bitquery: Is StonkFun dumping on holders? (22 Sep)
- press Blockworks 0xResearch: StonkFun matches pump.fun (14 Sep)
- onchain StonkFun: revenue policy (60% buys and burns $STONK)
- researcher @Inj_pumping: DumpFun launch (27 Sep)
Know more, or named here and want to reply? DM @trenchbookapp on X. A wallet's owner who proves control of it gets their reply printed.