Former Pump.fun employees say they were dismissed two months before their PUMP tokens vested. Weeks after those dates passed, the team unlocked 50 billion tokens of its own.
An anonymous X (Twitter) account claiming to speak for more than 40 ex-staff began publishing termination emails this week. Pump.fun has not addressed the allegations publicly.
April Brought Layoffs and a $370 Million Burn
Sandmark reported that the Solana launchpad terminated contracts in early April. A quarter of each staff allocation was due to vest roughly two months later. Grant agreements had been signed in mid-June 2025, according to documents the outlet reviewed.
Co-founder Noah Tweedale attributed the cuts to a business that “grew too quickly” and could no longer move “fast and rough.” Severance ran to one week of salary for every month worked. One departing employee reportedly lost PUMP worth seven figures at current prices.
That same month, however, the platform destroyed $370 million of repurchased PUMP, wiping out roughly 36% of circulating supply. Co-founder Alon Cohen defended the April token burn at the time.
“Every dollar not burned is a dollar being put to work toward the same outcome”
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What the July 12 Cliff Released
The insider cliff expired on July 12, one year to the day after PUMP sold at $0.004 in its initial coin offering. Tokenomist data put the 82.5 billion token release at 50 billion for the team and 32.5 billion for existing investors.
At Friday’s price, the team slice alone is worth about $102 million. Measured against operations, that figure is striking.
Pump.fun booked $19.1 million of revenue in the 30 days to July 22, according to DefiLlama. That measure counts the platform’s cut of trade fees plus graduation and Mayhem fees. The team tranche therefore exceeds five months of it.
Revenue was also climbing rather than shrinking. DefiLlama logged $764,802 on July 22, a 22.6% rise month over month, against $1.07 billion earned since March 2024.
The Grievance Runs Through the Launchpad
Markets have not flinched. PUMP traded near $0.0020 on Friday, up almost 6% in a day. It still sits 77% under its September 2025 peak and 49% below the ICO price.
Verification remains thin. Sandmark could not confirm the second layoff wave, and the one public record that would settle headcount is late.
Baton Corporation Ltd is the UK entity behind Pump.fun. Its accounts for the period to 30 September 2025 were due at Companies House by 30 June. Those accounts disclose employee numbers, and they remain unfiled. The last set covers the year to March 2024.
Tweedale and Cohen are also personally named in a securities class action. Plaintiffs filed it in the Southern District of New York in January 2025.
Pump.fun did not immediately respond to BeInCrypto’s request for comment.
A billion dollars of tracked revenue sits behind this company, and one overdue filing sits in front of it. Until that document lands, April stays a matter of claim against claim.