Memecoin Frenzy Reaches Tron as Justin Sun-Backed SunPump Rakes in Big Bucks

Merchants made fortunes by selling shovels during the gold rush, and the crypto market is seeing glimpses of that behavior in current times.
Newly-released SunPump.meme, a meme coin generator on the Tron network backed by Tron creator Justin Sun, has raked in over $1 million revenue in a little under two weeks. The application lets users easily issue meme coins and trade them as they would on a crypto exchange. The product banks on the ongoing meme coin craze among crypto traders, one that is mainly focused within the Solana ecosystem.
SunPump is similar in concept to Solana’s runaway hit application Pump.Fun. Both allow users to select a picture, choose the number of tokens, a theme, and issue new tokens for a few dollars in capital.
These tokens are automatically listed on decentralized exchanges once they reach a market value of $60,000 on Pump and $69,420 (a reference to memes) on SunPump.
SunPump is quickly gaining a following. Data tracked by Dune Analytics shows over 7,300 tokens were created on SunPump in the past 24 hours, generating $585,000 revenue. On the other hand, Pump recorded 6,700 new token issuances, generating $366,000 in revenue in that timeframe.
Several meme coins launched on SunPump have created big paper profits for early buyers.
One address “TDm2” tracked by on-chain analytics tool Arkham shows its owner turned an initial $1,000 purchase into $400,000 on SUNWUKONG, a reference to the newly-release Chinese video game Black Myth: Wukong.
Another trader turned $1,690 of SUNDOG into more than $20 million million in six days. They hold $19.5 million of SUNDOG across seven addresses and have already sent $1 million to exchanges, Arkham noted.
The platform’s popularity is driven, in part, by Sun’s bullish posts about the future of SunPump.
“It’s just the beginning,” he said in a Thursday X post. “We are doing our best to serve all the meme developers and users in the industry.”
“It’s still early. Just do the math,” Sun said on Wednesday. “How big of a market can be created with over $60 billion in liquidity? The total market cap of TRON meme is still less than $200 million USD. TO THE SUN.”
On Thursday, SunPump’s transaction fees were reduced to a flat fee of 0.76 TRX—worth 1 cent—from an earlier fee of 1% per transaction to encourage more usage.
As such, SunPump’s popularity has boosted the fortunes of its underlying network and TRX tokens. Data tracked by DefiLlama shows Tron made a lifetime record $3.48 million in revenue in the past two days each. This was the first time the network made more than $2 million in a single day since it was first launched in May 2018.
TRX prices, meanwhile, have jumped more than 20% in the past week, beating bitcoin and major token gains tracked by the liquid CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index, which are just over 4%.
Other Tron-based assets closely related to founder Justin Sun, such as BTT, SUN and JST have rocketed higher as well, rising as much as 15% over the past week, CoinGecko data shows.
Such gains are just beginning. Sun said Thursday that the “meme strategy” could bring the Tron blockchain revenue to over $4 billion in the next 12 months, which could mean at least $2 billion given as rewards to stakers and for transaction subsidies – boosting the fundamentals for TRX tokens.
Edited by Parikshit Mishra.
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Shaurya is the Deputy Managing Editor for the Data & Tokens team, focusing on decentralized finance, markets, on-chain data, and governance across all major and minor blockchains.