Pump.fun in 2026: Graduation Rate Collapses to 0.26% as Solana Fees Drop 84%

Pump.fun spent two years as the engine of the Solana memecoin machine. In 2026 that engine is sputtering. According to on-chain data compiled from Dune and reported by industry outlets, pump.fun's token graduation rate, the share of launched tokens that gather enough liquidity to migrate to a full decentralized exchange, has collapsed to roughly 0.26 percent in mid June, an 80 percent drop over three months. Solana network fees, which pump.fun activity heavily influenced, fell from a daily average near 33,000 SOL in January to about 5,300 SOL in June, a decline of around 84 percent. Pump.fun's own daily revenue, reported near several million dollars at its peak, was down to roughly 800,000 dollars in early June.

Those are not small wobbles. They describe a structural shift in how the memecoin market works, and the reason is visible in the raw on-chain base rate that we track live.

What a graduation rate actually measures

On a launchpad like pump.fun, a new token starts life on a bonding curve. It graduates when it accumulates enough buying to fill that curve and migrate to open DEX trading. A 0.26 percent graduation rate means that out of roughly 1,000 tokens launched, only about two or three ever reach that bar. The other 997 stall on the curve and fade. Graduation is the closest thing the launchpad world has to a survival metric, and it has cratered.

The on-chain base rate behind the collapse

This is where our live data adds context the headline numbers miss. Our New Token Tracker shows that new token creation across Solana still runs into the thousands per hour, so the supply of launches has not dried up. The problem is quality and follow through. Our New Token Risk Index shows that a clear majority of newly launched tokens carry negligible liquidity, with the median new token holding only a few dollars in its pool. And our Token Survival Index shows that fewer than half of new tokens are still actively traded a day after launch, with the share collapsing toward zero within a week.

Put those together and a 0.26 percent graduation rate stops being surprising. When most launches arrive with almost no liquidity and stop trading within days, very few can ever build the sustained buying needed to graduate. The launchpad slowdown is the survival problem expressed in one number.

Where the attention went

Capital and traders did not leave crypto, they rotated. On-chain perpetuals venues, led by Hyperliquid, captured a record share of derivatives volume in the same window, and a new wave of launchpads and tweet-to-token platforms competed for what memecoin attention remained. The result is a more fragmented, more competitive, and lower-margin launch market than the one pump.fun dominated in 2024 and 2025.

What it means for traders

The practical lesson is that launchpad dominance is not destiny, and a falling graduation rate is a warning about the base odds of any single launch. If only two or three tokens per thousand graduate, chasing fresh launches without verification is a bet against steep odds. Before touching any new token, compare its live 24 hour volume against its liquidity, and run the contract through the DEXTools Token Safety Checker for honeypot, mint and ownership flags. For the wider safety picture, the Rug and Scam Rate Index tracks how many recent launches carry a critical flag. This article is information only and is not financial advice.