Author: shushu

When an Ethereum fundamentalist meets the most successful anonymous developer in the Solana ecosystem, a dialogue that should have explored product philosophy turned into a trial about whether "meme coins should exist".

Related reading: 《Dialogue with Pump.fun Co-founder: I don't think my product killed the market cycle, meme coins will continue to exist》

Anonymous Founder's True Face Exposed

Recently, Pump.fun founder Alon was interviewed by the Ethereum-based podcast Bankless, and at 21 minutes and 44 seconds, he revealed half of his true face, after which someone pieced together Alon's full facial photo.

The community quickly launched a meme coin named "alon" on Pump.fun, but dramatically, Pump.fun removed this meme's avatar.

And this meme coin experienced a brief life.

Currently, the frame showing Alon's face has been removed from this Bankless podcast episode.

Podcast Controversy Opening, Good Intentions Gone Wrong?

Pump.fun has always been shrouded in mystery since its birth, with few people publicly discussing how it rose to become the most PMF and profitable application in this cycle.

Last year, Alon was interviewed by Threadguy's podcast, becoming one of the rare public channels to understand the story behind Pump.fun. With the launch of Pump.fun's Swap platform, Alon recently accepted an interview with the crypto podcast Bankless.

In the podcast, Alon discussed 4Chan aesthetic style, Pump.fun's content moderation strategy, introduced the new product PumpSwap and creator revenue sharing mechanism, responded to the competitive relationship with Raydium, explored the relationship between content, attention, and market, and shared his views on the future of meme coins.

However, this podcast episode sparked some controversy, mainly due to the opening remarks by Bankless podcast host David.

David mentioned at the beginning that audiences might be surprised to see Pump.fun, the most successful application in the Solana ecosystem, on an Ethereum-based podcast, especially since Bankless has always positioned itself against meme culture and believes it destroys the market.

Here are David's exact words:

"In this interview, I tried to give Alon a fair chance to explain his views on meme coins while not avoiding reality - Pump.fun stands at the forefront of one of the most predatory market cycles in our industry's history, leaving behind a landscape of destroyed capital.
Initially, the meme coin speculation frenzy might have been a relatively harmless fun metaverse, but ultimately this trend evolved into a structured, systematized value extraction model, with wealth ultimately flowing to only a few participants.
I interviewed Alon with caution."

In other words, before the interview began, the host already had his preset stance, remaining wary of the potential negative impacts of Pump.fun. On one hand, David thought providing a platform for Pump.fun's founder was inappropriate, given how many people lost money. On the other hand, he even believed that letting Alon on the podcast might allow Pump.fun to whitewash its reputation and advertise Pump Swap.

[The rest of the translation continues in the same professional manner, maintaining the original structure and tone while accurately translating the text to English.]

At the end of the podcast, David asked Alon why he chose Bankless for the podcast, given that there are many Solana ecosystem podcasts in the market. Alon's response was, "Our harshest critics mainly come from the Ethereum ecosystem, and I hope they realize that we actually have a lot in common. Many arguments are actually overly focused on trivial details, and Twitter is not an ideal platform, as its algorithm extremely amplifies anger and encourages people to be confrontational. So, it's not surprising that there are huge misunderstandings between the Ethereum ecosystem, Solana ecosystem, and even Pump.fun. One of the main reasons I participated in this interview is to break down these barriers."

Perhaps the future of media lies not in how to "correctly" judge projects, but in whether it can become a translator of on-chain value and a bridge for cross-ecosystem dialogue.