The profit myth is shattered, and the community trust collapses: Syncracy Capital co-founder reveals the secrets of PumpFun

l Token value relies on clear utility and execution, not financing gimmicks.

The key lies in whether PumpFun can use funds for substantive innovation, rather than continuing financial games, which will determine whether this ICO is an opportunity for ecosystem upgrade or another capital harvest.

Laura Shin: What considerations are behind PumpFun's financing strategy focusing on ICO and supplemented by airdrops?

Ryan Watkins: Most airdrop projects do not bring substantial value to the product, but instead distribute free funds to users who do not truly care about the product - these people often sell immediately after receiving the airdrop. Hyperliquid became a rare successful case not because users hold airdrop tokens long-term (in fact, most still choose to sell), but because it has a strong product power and sustainable revenue model. Airdrops here merely serve as an auxiliary means to demonstrate community consistency, aligning with decentralization principles. The key insights are:

l Airdrops should be implemented after product maturity and must provide users with sufficient reasons to hold tokens

l For the Solana ecosystem, airdrops might compensate some meme coin traders' losses and reactivate market enthusiasm

l Essentially, airdrops are just the icing on the cake, and the product's own value is the decisive factor

Blindly imitating airdrop models will only waste resources; project parties should focus more on building products with real demand.

(IV) From Trading Venue to Super App? PumpFun's Breakthrough Path and Watershed Moment

Laura Shin: How can PumpFun maintain its leading position in increasingly fierce competition?

Ryan Watkins: PumpFun is facing a core challenge: nearly half of the trading volume is now controlled by third-party interfaces and bots, gradually causing the platform to lose its entry position for asset distribution. This trend will continue to weaken its ecological dominance, and large third parties can easily build their own token issuance platforms (as the Radium case shows), diverting users and liquidity. Although currently maintaining its position through liquidity advantages, it must enhance user stickiness in the long run to consolidate competitiveness. Its response strategies focus on two directions:

1. Social transformation: Build emotional stickiness by constructing a social graph, making users stay due to social relationships rather than pure trading needs (conforming to Chris Dixon's principle of "tools attract users, network effects retain users")

2. Function generalization: Transform competitors' innovations into its own functional modules, upgrading from a single meme platform to a comprehensive entry point

Fundamentally, PumpFun needs to complete its transformation from a "trading venue" to a "social + financial super app" before its liquidity advantage fades, otherwise third-party ecosystem consumption is just a matter of time. Cases like Radium show that pure technical replication can hardly shake the market leader, but ecosystem reconstruction combined with social relationships might change the game rules.

Laura Shin: Any other opinions or suggestions about PumpFun?

Ryan Watkins: This industry always occasionally presents controversial yet exciting turning points. Can PumpFun successfully raise $1 billion? How will the market digest this news? What specific uses will the funds have? Regardless of the final outcome, as one of the most well-funded and user-based products in the crypto field, PumpFun's every move could profoundly impact the Solana and even the entire industry ecosystem. This is destined to be a landmark event worth close attention.