Harmful Livestreams Prompt Ban Calls

Since its launch earlier this year, the meme coin platform Pump.fun has become a notable name in the crypto industry. This platform allows users, regardless of their technical know-how, to create and launch meme coins swiftly.

However, the live-streaming feature has led to serious controversies and calls for a ban due to inappropriate content and financial malfeasance.

Originally, Pump.fun’s livestream was intended to let developers promote their meme coins. Regrettably, some users have misused it to broadcast extreme and harmful activities. A notable incident involved a developer promoting self-harm if his cryptocurrency reached a $25 million market cap.

Additionally, some users threaten to harm pets or even humans if their coins do not achieve certain market capitalization goals.

The situation reached a critical point when Beau, a safety project manager at Pudgy Penguins, reported an alarming livestream. In it, an individual threatened to hang themselves if their coin did not reach a specific market cap.

“Shut down the livestream feature. This is out of control,” Beau stated.

The platform has also been a hotbed for financial scams, prominently featuring “rug pulls.” A recent case involved a school-aged individual who created a meme coin named QUANT, quickly amassing $30,000 and then exiting the project, leaving investors with worthless digital tokens. This led to the kid’s doxxing, with his personal information and that of his family maliciously shared online.

In response to these incidents, some community members have called for the complete shutdown of the platform. Conversely, others suggest that simply disabling the livestream function might suffice.

Eddie, a legal intern, strongly criticized the platform’s governance. He believes that turning off the livestreams or moderating them is crucial.

“There is an art to shock value on stream. Simply sharing nudity or other shocking and even horrific content is not innately interesting. People seek stories and novel concepts that engage them. The content shared on pump livestreams at the moment are not only uninteresting, but conceptually lazy,” Eddie said.

Yet Alon, a Pump.fun executive, claims that the platform’s content has been moderated since day one.

“We have a large team of moderators working around the clock and an internal team of engineers that’s working on helping us deal with increased scale of coins, streams, and comments. I admit that our moderation isn’t perfect, so if you’re aware of a coin where moderation isn’t enforced, please report it in our support channels immediately,” Alon said.

The ongoing debate reflects the platform’s dilemma. While it offers users significant creative freedom, it also poses serious risks without stringent moderation.

Now, the community and stakeholders await decisive action. The call for stronger moderation is loud and clear, aiming to protect both the platform’s integrity and its users from further harm.

Despite these controversies, Pump.fun has continued to perform well financially. Data from DefiLlama shows that the platform has amassed over $215 million in revenue since March 2024.

Furthermore, the platform has facilitated the deployment of more than 3.8 million meme coins.