Pump.fun’s revenue-backed buyback program has so far failed to arrest a steep decline in the PUMP token as heavy selling from large holders and mounting legal pressure have driven prices to multi-month lows. The PUMP token’s sharp losses and sustained outflows put the effectiveness of the platform’s buyback mechanism into question.
Large-holder activity has been the primary downward force on PUMP. On December 13, a single whale sale of $6.3 million coincided with a 30.4% intraday collapse. On December 24 another large holder deposited 3.8 billion PUMP to FalconX after previously withdrawing the same tokens from Binance; that position represented an unrealized loss of $12.22 million relative to its earlier withdrawal valuation of $19.53 million.
A top holder reportedly sold out after facing a 62% loss. Data from Nansen shows wallets holding more than 1 million PUMP collectively trimmed balances by 13.07% over the preceding 30 days.
The token’s market performance reflects that selling pressure: PUMP fell about 35% over the past month and roughly 71% over 90 days, frequently trading around $0.0017 — levels last seen during the October market sell-off. The token is also down more than 80% from its all-time high and sits about 30% below its previous all-time low prior to the buyback program.
Whale selling and PUMP price performance
Pump.fun launched a buyback program in July that directs 100% of platform revenue to repurchasing PUMP. Since inception, buybacks total approximately $218.1 million, with $32.7 million deployed over the past 30 days — a run-rate that the platform frames as near-$1 million in daily buy pressure.Despite sizeable purchases, the program has not offset concentrated selling.
The situation is compounded by legal exposure: a U.S. RICO suit accuses the platform of facilitating roughly $5.5 billion in pump-and-dump activity and selling unregistered securities, and a class-action case was permitted to proceed on December 24. The legal overhang coincides with reported declines in platform revenue and network activity, factors that undermine market confidence in sustained buyback support.
Broader market conditions have also worked against PUMP. Risk-off sentiment across crypto has weighed on altcoins, with larger-cap benchmarks under pressure; Ethereum was noted at $2,930 on December 23, illustrating the uneven macro backdrop that amplifies volatility in speculative tokens.
Pump.fun’s aggressive revenue allocation to buybacks has provided measurable demand but has not halted price erosion driven by concentrated whale exits and legal uncertainty.
