Source: TradingView, CNBC, Bloomberg, Messari
The Inevitable Rally Finally Happened
We’ve been writing “That’s Our Two Satoshis” for over 7 years. Naturally, some of our write-ups have been good, some bad, some in between. I believe what our team wrote last week regarding the future of crypto asset management and the week before regarding new market cap standards are two of the best we’ve ever written, and I hope everyone takes the time to read it.
But this week we’ll go back to talking about markets, because, well, they are flying higher. And this seemed inevitable. With equities, gold, and BTC at all-time-highs again, and crypto stocks at all-time highs, and a plethora of new Digital Asset Treasury (DAT) companies raising money with what seems to be endless bids, it was only a matter of time before the tokens of the companies and projects that powers all of these ancillary crypto businesses would finally get a bid themselves. And they did, in a big way last week.
It had been so odd to see most of the crypto market still down 30-60% YTD (prior to this week’s rally), given all of these other positive factors and price action. But the bottom fishing finally arrived in crypto, with many of the most beaten-up tokens YTD jumping the most last week. A quick screener (using Messari’s best-in-class screeners) shows that the biggest month-to-date winners in crypto are actually some of the biggest 1H 2025 losers.
Source: Messari
Does this “everything rally” mean we’re closer to the end than the beginning of upward price action? Probably not. While many rallies have historically topped when the dino coins start to rally (XRP, XLM, HBAR, etc) or when other lower quality assets rally, the flip side is that this is the first sign of life for any of these tokens since January. And as price goes, so do exchange volumes. Total exchange volumes on both centralized exchanges and decentralized exchanges were up 23% week-over-week, but still aren’t close to the levels we’ve seen during other rallies in the past. And that is very good for the majority of DeFi tokens, which produce strong revenues and have heavy token buybacks during prosperous times.
Source: Arca Internal Calculations
Similarly, other major tops (March 2024 & December 2024) coincided with open interest in non-BTC tokens flipping Bitcoin open interest on a percentage basis. The current rally is nowhere near that.
We’ve often said that bear markets are easier to trade than bull markets in crypto, because the moves tend to make sense, relatively, and the tokens with good tokenomics issued by strong companies tend to outperform the poorly created tokens from industries that've yet to prove anything. Whereas crypto rallies are often confusing because algos, day-traders, and retail tend to pile into anything with a pulse, thereby muddying the waters of fundamental analysis.
However, with so many positive events happening in crypto right now, it's hard to focus on assets that are higher for no reason. The assets that should be up, are going up, and if that drags the bottom of the barrel up too, so be it.
PUMP.fun Record Token Launch, and The Market Reaction
After dominating on-chain activity with its memecoin launchpad, pump.fun is now formalizing its role as the monetization engine for Solana’s attention economy by launching its native token. Pump.fun’s token launch (PUMP) consists of a 1 trillion token supply, allocating 33% to ICO investors (split between private and public, with identical terms - a rare sign of fairness and something we’ve been begging for with token launches). The private round has been in high demand for weeks, and the public ICO sold out extremely quickly, raising approximately $500 million in about 12 minutes when it launched this weekend. The lightning-fast sellout confirms massive demand and confidence in the project.
More importantly, it was a token launch that actually sold tokens at a market-clearing price (similar to IPOs and bond deal launches) rather than the absurdly stupid direct-listing token launches that we’ve been yelling about for the past 2 years. The thawing of the SEC’s hostility towards crypto has brought some common sense back to crypto capital markets, and it is showing off in one of the largest token sales in history.
Launching a token that raises $500 million in under 15 minutes isn’t a fluke, it’s a statement. PUMP is trading 40%+ over the ICO price on perpetual futures exchanges (like Hyperliquid) before anyone even receives their token allocation, signaling that the token should rise quickly when spot trading begins. And while that sounds obvious, it’s such a departure from the horrific token launches of the past three years that we must stop and celebrate it. Open interest is surging, with over $400 million in perp open interest on Hyperliquid, and all the pieces are in place for a historic launch.
Now, whether pump.fun can turn that fever into lasting value, or is just another flash in the pan, remains to be seen. But with over $68 billion in cumulative trading volume and more than 100K daily users, the pump.fun platform clearly has product-market-fit right now, and has single-handedly propelled Solana to the top of daily address rankings. But success breeds competition (see our writeup in April on the “launchpad wars”), and bonk.fun, a rival platform, is starting to eat its lunch. Bonk has significantly increased its market share, and has surpassed pump.fun (at least temporarily) in daily launches and volumes, thanks in part to a fee model that actually rewards its token holders.
So is this purposeful timing by pump.fun, using the PUMP token to reinvigorate their platform? We think so. With 24% of PUMP supply earmarked for community initiatives and 3% for creators and streamers, pump.fun has a chance to grow from extractive gatekeeper to aligned ecosystem builder. But success hinges on clarity around token rights, meaningful rewards for users, and whether it can out-innovate the rising bonk.fun juggernaut.
Since early June, letsBONK.fun has flipped pump.fun in nearly every metric that matters, with market share now commanding over 40% of all fees (though this metric is very volatile). As a result, the BONK token is up ~68% month-to-date, with persistent, on-chain buy pressure driven directly by platform activity.
But pump.fun can now deploy its war chest (well over $1B in cash from this raise alone), and incentivize its user base, to reassert dominance through incentives, marketing, or a pivot in value accrual. The PUMP token could become the tool necessary to grow ahead of its competitors, or become the symbol of the end of the dynasty.
