Can hiring a top TRUMP trader help Pump.fun win the launchpad war?
Pump.fun hires meme coin trader Kimchi as a creative partner and launches Rolex prize packs to fight off competition from rival trading app Fomo, boosting the PUMP token price.
On Tuesday, October 20, Pump.fun brought on Solana trader Kimchi as a creative partner. The move coincided with the meme coin launchpad application launching the sale of Rolex prize packs as the platform fights to recapture retail users from competing trading app Fomo. Previously, the pump crypto playbook relied primarily on quick launches and low-cost tokens; today, it features watches and celebrities.
The platform’s native token, PUMP, rose 9.16% over a 24-hour period to reach $0.004801, accompanied by $189.6 million in trading volume. This leaves open the question of whether Pump.fun is successfully investing in a return to dominance or simply purchasing temporary attention.
Kimchi is the first person to truly cross the chasm between crypto and pop culture; the first ever example of a trader becoming a celebrity.
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He represents exactly where we’re heading: a massive social trading ecosystem that onboards retail and grows to 10x the size we were last… https://t.co/jJztM2hiNp
Kimchi (@kimchi1x) is a pseudonymous meme coin trader who claims to have accumulated roughly $40 million from trading the official TRUMP token following its launch in January 2025. This assertion established his reputation, eventually turning “a Kimchi” into crypto shorthand for $40 million. Although this figure has never been verified on-chain—and skeptics often scrutinize the luxury timepieces and automobiles featured in his social media posts—that very lifestyle serves a strategic purpose.
Alon, co-founder of Pump.fun, described him as “the first ever example of a trader becoming a celebrity,” adding that the upcoming wave of users “does not come from CT” (crypto Twitter), “it comes from the masses.” According to Alon, Kimchi will guide the creative direction of Pump.fun.
The wider trading community responded true to form. A token named KIMCHI achieved a market capitalization of approximately $35 million in just under an hour, while the Pump.fun Ecosystem account claimed on social media that Kimchi “made $32,000,000 on Pumpfun 30 mins after joining.”
That figure represents theoretical value rather than realized gains. On-chain analyst Ai Yi, via Odaily, noted that Kimchi retained 75.32% of the token’s supply, meaning the bulk of that $32 million valuation would only exist until he attempted to liquidate holdings into a shallow liquidity pool.
The same analyst also observed him transferring 1.35 billion PUMP tokens—valued at roughly $6.43 million—out of his wallet across a three-hour span.
Pump Crypto War: Why Is Pump.fun Fighting So Hard for Users?
The aggressive push stems from Fomo’s near-upset. Figures from DefiLlama show that the Benchmark-backed social trading app Fomo outearned Pump.fun’s launchpad on 13 separate occasions between September 2 and September 16, capturing roughly 60% of the combined revenue generated by both applications during the first fortnight of September.
PUMP vs FOMO
Pump.fun responded aggressively. A leaked agreement from August revealed the platform offered Fomo traders a $30,000 monthly stipend alongside a $20,000 signing bonus to migrate their operations to Pump.fun, provided they deleted their Fomo accounts. This followed the introduction of a social feed and alert system designed to mirror Fomo’s features.
For the moment, the strategy is yielding results. Over a 30-day window, DefiLlama records Pump.fun’s launchpad revenue at $45.4 million compared to Fomo’s $19 million. On Tuesday alone, the launchpad brought in $1.46 million while Fomo generated $365,000, reducing Fomo’s portion back to approximately 20%.
Additionally, Pump.fun has begun offering Collector Crypt packs—NFTs backed by physical collectibles held in vaults that can be redeemed for USDC. Ranging from $25 to $5,000, certain packs contain Rolex watches valued at $20,000. Within hours, roughly $2 million worth of packs were sold, with 4,013 packs producing 18 watches, several of which were secured by the platform’s affiliated influencers.
My entire timeline is flooded with low effort shills from pretty much every CT KOL promoting Pumpfun packs
Hoping to see a cycle where all of the OGs come back, teaching the rookies how it’s done and hopefully setting the tone for the entire cycle
— Cryptoaeon (@Cryptoaeon) October 20, 2026
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PUMP Price Analysis: Can the Kimchi Bounce Hold?
Although PUMP rallied from $0.0044 to $0.00496 within a day, it remains 29% lower than its peak of $0.006806 reached on October 4, and sits 46% below its all-time high from September 2025 of $0.008819.
PUMPUSDT Chart 1D
Key levels on the daily chart include:
Immediate resistance: $0.004867, representing a swing high just above the current price level.
Subsequent objectives: $0.005447, followed by the October high of $0.006806.
Initial support: $0.004659, which corresponds to the 50-day exponential moving average (EMA) recently reclaimed by PUMP.
Downturn support: $0.00375, marking the previous swing low, with the 200-day EMA positioned further down at $0.003396.
Continuous buying support exists underneath the market. Pump.fun dedicates roughly half of its daily income to repurchasing and burning PUMP tokens—amounting to approximately $900,000 per day over the week—with token metrics indicating total buybacks of $490.7 million, representing 17.3% of the circulating supply.
Ultimately, Pump.fun has acquired a prominent influencer, a gamified prize system, and a temporary market lead. Whether the meme coin community remains loyal once the distribution of watches concludes is a challenge that token buybacks cannot resolve.
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