As Solana’s memecoin market heats up again, PumpSwap, the trading arm of the Pump ecosystem, suddenly released jaw-dropping data.
The spike comes amid a broader “memecoin comeback” trade since the start of the year, particularly on Solana. As Bitcoin remains above key levels and liquidity improves post-holiday, traders have been turning to the high-beta corners of the market, boosting a basket of meme names across chains.
Data tracked by DeFiLlama shows that the Pump DEX ecosystem has traded $1.28 billion in the past 24 hours, bringing the seven-day volume to $6.15 billion and the 30-day volume to $19.69 billion. Cumulative trading volume is now approaching $176.8 billion, a reminder of how quickly retail traffic can return when memes attract bids.
The January 5 snapshot shows PumpSwap’s dominance within its own ecosystem: approximately $1.21 billion in daily trading volume comes from PumpSwap, compared with $63.7 million in daily trading volume from the old route of Pump.fun.
PumpSwap is Pump’s built-in decentralized exchange on Solana, where newly launched tokens can be traded once they “graduate” from Pump.fun. Pump.fun is a Solana memecoin launchpad that allows anyone to create a token in minutes, often through a simple bonding curve-style sale to help bootstrap early liquidity.
Japan-centric and anime-based tokens appear to be the flavor of new coin offerings during Tuesday’s Asian afternoon session, although these themes can change quickly based on the latest narrative or the demographics of the users most using the platform at any given time.
But there’s a problem. Despite record transaction volumes, fee generation has not exploded in the same way. On January 5, fees were approximately $2.98 million, of which approximately $1.21 million was marked as protocol revenue, with approximately $881,700 flowing to holders.
Many memecoin transactions are in and out quickly, often in low-fee pools.
On top of that, competition among Solana venues tends to squeeze fees as platforms compete to become the default path to exchange.
The surge in PumpSwap is another signal that the “interesting” corner of the market is back – when memes run, they drag down the rest of Solana’s activity.
Whether trading volumes are sustainable (and translate into meaningful revenue) will depend on how long traders continue to play the game, and whether this turns into meme season noise for more than a week.
