In the upcoming report (2026 Annual Application Outlook) from the research institution Delphi Digital, Pump.fun is regarded as one of the most noteworthy consumer applications to watch for the next year.
Article author, compiled by: Simon, Yuliya
Source: PANews
In the upcoming report (2026 Annual Application Outlook) from the research institution Delphi Digital, Pump.fun is regarded as one of the most noteworthy consumer applications to watch for the next year. The report points out that since Delphi Digital first released analysis before Pump's financing, although many predictions have come true, the platform's development in certain areas has not met expectations, leaving users and investors disappointed, and its core challenges remain. To achieve a grander vision, the Pump team must seek a balance between the inherent short-termism of the crypto world and the platform's long-term aspirations. The report further emphasizes that once the project launches its token, the operating environment will change accordingly, as the token itself will become a product with intrinsic reflexivity, continuously shaping user expectations—Pump is no exception.
The dilemma of the creator economy and the fleeting nature of 'Bagwork'
Since its financing, the Pump team has continuously invested in the crypto-native live streaming field, but this has not unfolded as Delphi Digital expected, at least not yet.
Pump has failed to attract influential creators from outside the crypto ecosystem, and the CCM (Creator Capital Market) model that briefly surged on Pump quickly faded away. The most notable moment came from the rise of 'Bagwork', which highlighted both the potential of creator-driven tokens and exposed the structural issues that still hinder the model's development.
This breakthrough was led by a group of teenagers and received partial support from Pump. They orchestrated a series of viral stunts: stealing fitness influencer Bradley Martyn's hat, rushing onto the field at a Dodgers game, storming the Knicks' court, and even getting tattoos of Pump.fun and Bagwork.
The emergence of 'Bagwork' nearly perfectly coincided with the peak moment of Pump.fun in mid-September, when the fully diluted valuation (FDV) of the $PUMP token reached about $8.5 billion, while the market cap of Bagwork token $BAGWORK briefly exceeded $50 million. Since then, no creator coin has come close to replicating that level of natural growth momentum or peak valuation. The stunt of storming the Knicks court occurred long after the initial hype cycle had passed, and now Bagwork's market cap is around $2 million.
Bagwork is one of the few cases in Pump's live streaming experiment that has operated as expected. The Bagwork team earned over 2300 SOL in creator revenue (approximately $300,000 at current prices) through $BAGWORK transaction fees. Note that all of this was generated without the team having to sell any holdings. These viral stunts directly translated into attention, trading volume, and fees, creating the closest case to a real creator token flywheel effect that Pump has seen so far.
However, aside from Bagwork, Pump has struggled to realize its ambitions in the live streaming space. The value of creator coins continues to decline, which circles back to the structural issue of the token being part of the product itself.
Structural issues and the path forward
Currently, the economic incentives for holding or supporting a streamer coin remain unclear. The early success of Bagwork quickly faded, and since then, every mainstream streamer coin has failed to gain similar traction and has ultimately trended towards zero.
Creators can earn short-term income through the fee structure of CCM, but the reputational costs associated with being tied to a depreciating token make this model less attractive to more established big influencers who could help attract a broader audience. From a trader's perspective, these tokens still exist in a zero-sum game environment, rather than a true community.
This is the most important issue Pump needs to address as it enters 2026.
The team has yet to conduct meaningful experiments in deeper creator incentives, and its airdrop allocation has also not been utilized. Aside from informal support during the peak of Bagwork, Pump has not made any coordinated attempts, such as targeted airdrops, creator rewards, or other incentive mechanisms. These mechanisms could have been used to guide early activity, create more PvE (player versus environment) style incentives, and give creators space to experiment without immediately destroying their communities.
The good news is that this gives Pump significant options. The unused 'Community and Ecosystem Initiative' fund pool is an important lever that the team can tap into when the model is ready. If Pump can design a sustainable incentive structure for creator tokens, it will unlock an entirely new economic category for those creators wishing to leverage crypto mechanisms to monetize and grow their audiences. Its upside potential is real, but before that, the live streaming feature will continue to exist as a series of fleeting hype cycles rather than a lasting, repeatable business vertical.
Token economics and market performance
In terms of tokens, the major catalyst for the $PUMP price rebound from around $0.025 to $0.085 was the team's decision to allocate 100% of net revenue for buybacks.
After the market clearly indicated that a share buyback strategy would not be rewarded, Pump shifted from initially planning to use about a quarter of its revenue for buybacks to essentially adopting a model very similar to Hyperliquid. This shift helped ignite one of the strongest rebounds of large-cap tokens in the annual market amidst a liquidity-scarce and harsh altcoin environment.
From the perspective of the buyback to market cap ratio, currently no mainstream token trades at a multiple cheaper than $PUMP. According to current data, Pump's annualized revenue is $422 million, while its market cap is $1.84 billion, which means its market cap/revenue multiple (MC/Rev) is 4.36 times, with an annualized buyback yield of about 12.8%. These levels are significantly lower than all other large-cap tokens, including Hyperliquid's roughly 8.01 times MC/Rev and about 3.34% yield.
Even so, the market remains skeptical about Pump's long-term business trajectory. Concerns may include: whether the team can continue to deliver meaningful products, the impact of future token unlocks (about 40% of the supply is still locked), and uncertainties around how airdrops and creator incentive distributions will ultimately be implemented. Furthermore, the general contraction of Memecoin and terminal activities, along with ongoing questions about the sustainability of Pump's revenue base, have exacerbated these worries.
Despite these concerns, Pump continues to dominate the Memecoin launch platform space, and even in an extremely tough market environment, it can still generate (and buy back) around $1 million daily. Its daily launch platform revenue has fallen nearly 85% from a peak of nearly $14 million/day at the beginning of the year to now around $2 million/day, but competitors have failed to significantly shake Pump's position aside from brief challenges. This aligns with Delphi Digital's initial report expectations during the Bonk and Raydium challenger phase: even facing periodic trading volume compression, Pump maintains a structurally advantageous share in industry activity.
Strategic trends and future directions
The acquisition of Padre indicates that Pump intends to go beyond Solana, reaching multi-chain users, and has already achieved support for BNB ecosystem assets through Padre's front end. This also aligns with Delphi Digital's earlier prediction that Pump would eventually acquire a terminal or terminal-related assets to strengthen its traffic entry points and integrate more user journeys. However, aside from these moves, the team has remained low-key. An investor call has been scheduled, but as of this writing, it has not yet taken place, so there may be more definitive information forthcoming.
Pump's leadership has also indicated interest in the broader ICM (Internet Capital Market) category, but this is not considered a core area by Delphi Digital, nor does it align with Pump's current core identity or product strengths. The initial attempt at this model was by Believe, but it failed to gain real traction, while MetaDAO has since become the dominant player in the 'high-quality founders + community' funding space. ICM also culturally and structurally feels misaligned with Pump's brand, which is built on speculation, speed, and creator meme culture, rather than lengthy governance or prophet governance-style systems.
To succeed in the ICM space, Pump needs to delve into the heavy governance structure and attract non-crypto teams that wish to operate on-chain, which is not where most of Pump's current users or creators are. Although there is theoretically room for growth if the team commits seriously, I believe this is a secondary or optional direction, rather than a natural extension of the existing flywheel effect as Pump enters 2026.
Looking ahead to 2026, the main questions revolve around whether Pump can ultimately create an incentive-consistent model for creator tokens, whether it can meaningfully expand into the multi-chain market through Padre, how to manage the issues of token unlocking and declining revenue visibility, and which product vertical it will choose as its most aggressive entry point. Currently, its strategy seems scattered across multiple levels, from live streaming to ICM to mobile. At some point, the team may need to identify a primary entry point, and for most of 2025, this entry point seems to be live streaming. Today, this has become less clear.
Potential breakthroughs: iGaming and mobile
The bigger question is whether Pump can still attract larger non-crypto creators. This may require reimagining the flywheel of creator tokens and introducing more robust, long-term incentives to sustain viral spread capabilities outside of the crypto-native community. The original elements are already in place. In 2025, the operation of Bagwork gave Delphi Digital a glimpse of what success looks like for this model, at which point Pump seemed close to crossing the chasm.
Pump also retains significant room for expansion in its product suite. One strategic direction that the team should seriously evaluate is entering the iGaming or casino-related verticals; a model similar to Kick/Stake naturally fits with Pump's speculative user base. This would create deep synergies with its memecoin and live streaming ambitions, and the profit potential of this category has been proven. Shuffle's net gaming revenue and weekly lottery distributions illustrate how significant this opportunity can be when executed properly.
Pump's mobile app is another underutilized asset. Promoting more deeply on mobile could broaden traffic entry points, making the product easier for mainstream users to adopt and provide creators with more monetization opportunities. If combined with iGaming, this would meaningfully expand Pump's potential user base while strengthening parts of the platform that are already effective.
Despite uncertainties, Pump remains one of the most resilient consumer applications in this cycle, maintaining its dominant position even as the broader macro environment shifts. Making substantial progress in any single direction could catalyze a meaningful reset in market sentiment and prepare Pump for broader breakthroughs beyond the crypto-native community.
