Almost immediately after memecoin launchpad letsBONK flipped pumpfun in terms of volumes and revenue, centralized exchange Gate published a webpage that unveiled PUMP token sale information, appearing to confirm the pumpfun token launch reports from June.
The PUMP token sale page on Gate was quietly taken down within hours of it circulating on X yesterday, July 7, and the page currently shows a 404.
But the initial discovery of its existence sent letsBONK tokens tumbling in anticipation of liquidity demand from the PUMP sale. The tokens did not recover today, July 8, and top letsBONK assets such as USELESS and HOSICO are down another 10% to 20% over the past 24 hours.
LetsBONK ecosystem assets. Source: CoinGecko
Gate’s sale depicted a $600 million raise beginning on July 12, which is set to run until July 15, with token distribution and spot trading to come as official announcements shortly after.
It is unclear whether or not there will be another centralized exchange hosting the remaining $400 million that is expected to be offered to the public, or if it will be on-chain via pumpfun’s official interface.
Screenshot of since deleted PUMP public sale page. Source: Gate.io
The upcoming launch has been hotly debated since the token was first reported, with Messari researcher Sunny Shi calling for a $7 to $20 billion valuation for the token, depending on its tokenomics, while others continue to refer to it as extractive.
Gate is currently the third-largest CEX by daily trading volumes, with $2.5 billion in the past 24 hours.
