The Launchpad Wars Are Heating Up
- Spot Socials
- Aug 13
- 6 min read
Written by Jason Krutzky, Chartered Meme Technician at Spot Trading.
Howdy gang!
The Launchpad Wars are heating up, the memes are running hot, and my friends in TradFi want in.
You know what this means, right? It means big money sees opportunity in our little meme world.
To me, that suggests there's a wave of sidelined cash that could be about to lift the floor in a big way, and I'm fucking hyped.
So hyped, in fact, that tomorrow morning, I'll be joining my buddy JC Parets on The Morning Show to give him and his audience a front row seat to The Launchpad Wars.
We're going to be dealing with normies here, and they really don't have a clue what's happening in the trenches, so I'm going to have to start from the beginning. I'm going to lay out the premise of The Launchpad Wars, the key players, the key tickers, and the key trends to watch.
If we're lucky, we're going to intrigue JC and his audience so much that he's going to ask me to come back again next week, and the week after that, and the week after that.
Hell, he might even give me my own show so that I can talk about all this stuff in way more detail, live, for you.
I think that sounds pretty exciting, and I'm thrilled for the opportunity.
I spent the day today preparing for our chat, and I want to give you the inside scoop first, so in today's note, I'm going to lay out the current state of The Launchpad Wars.
That way, his audience will have an extra resource to tap into once I'm off air.
Let's get into it.
The Premise Of The Launchpad Wars
The premise of The Launchpad Wars is simple:
The company that controls the lion's share of token launches makes the most revenue. That revenue can then be used in many ways to promote the launchpad. Promoting the launchpad drives more attention, which drives more tokens, which drives more revenue, and the cycle repeats over and over.
Here's a great visualization of the current landscape of daily tokens deployed.
You have to squint to see most of the launchpads, but the light green bars are Pump, and the orange bars are Bonk.
How Are Launchpad Revenues Being Used Now?
The most common way revenues are being used right now is to buy ecosystem coins.
Ecosystem coins are simply coins launched on the launchpad. LetsBonk has USELESS, PumpFun has TROLL, Jupiter Studio has URANUS, and of course, each has many other coins, as well. These are just the stars of the show.
When a launchpad buys its ecosystem coins, it's not only 'supporting its ecosystem.' More importantly, it's driving attention, which drives revenue.
So, it goes like this:
Launchpad buys eco coin
Eco coin explodes
Devs and traders flock to the launchpad to launch and trade eco coins
Launchpad collects trading revenues and gains from eco coin purchases
What Are The Most Important Launchpads Right Now?
For now, I'll point to 5 key launchpads:
Pump.fun (The OG)
LetsBonk.fun (The main competitor to Pump)
Jupiter Studio (The sleeper)
Bags (The newest entrant)
Believe (The quickly becoming irrelevant)
Pump.fun pioneered the memecoin launchpad space in January 2024 with its revolutionary bonding curve mechanism that makes tokens immediately tradable. Despite facing increased competition, it maintains a 67% market share and has facilitated over 12 million token launches and earned $789m in revenue.
Key Pump KOLs include Alon, the founder, and Shadow, the main voice behind TROLL.
LetsBonk.fun differentiates itself through deep BONK ecosystem integration and an innovative fee-sharing model that directs a large percentage of fees toward BONK buybacks and ecosystem development. While launching fewer tokens than competitors overall, it often leads in daily trading volume, suggesting higher quality launches and user engagement.
Jupiter Studio poses a sleeper threat to Pump.fun by leveraging Jupiter's massive DEX aggregator infrastructure for superior liquidity and execution. Launched in July 2025, it generated $100 million in trading volume on day one and has occasionally overtaken Pump.fun in market share, benefiting from seamless integration with existing DeFi services.
Key Jup KOLs include Meow, Jupiter's founder, and Kash Handa
Bags.app focuses on creator economics and meme culture authenticity, notably purchasing the original dogwifhat hat for $800,000 to demonstrate commitment to the space. The platform offers unique revenue assignment features that ensure original meme creators can monetize their content's tokenization.
Key Bags KOL is Finn, the founder
Believe.app revolutionizes token creation by allowing users to launch memecoins directly from Twitter replies, creating a seamless bridge between social virality and financial speculation.
Key Believe KOL is Ben Pasternak, the founder
What Are The Key Coins From Each Launchpad?
I'm not going to spend a ton of time here because I've already talked about these coins a lot, and things can change on a dime, but let's look at the leaders.
$TROLL (Pump.Fun)
Recently, we've seen a ton of activity on TROLL. It 10x'd in just over a week. This is because Pump.Fun was actively buying the token.
Whether those purchases will persist is anyone's guess, but let's get real here. Pump is buying TROLL for attention.
Why not buy their native token, PUMP, instead? I'll tell you why.
TROLL is a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to manipulate. Of course, they say it's because of the community, but we see through that ruse.
Don't think for a second that this whole plan isn't devised for the bigger purpose of driving the price of PUMP, which it absolutely is doing. Just look at that move off the lows... Almost a 2x.
$USELESS (LetsBonk.fun)
A few weeks ago, when everyone was talking about LetsBonk and Pumpfun was in the shitter, this was the chosen coin.
While it has been selling off recently, just today it was listed on both Binance US and Coinbase and is now bouncing hard, so like, yeah, the Bonk team is working for their bags, and this coin is likely going to do numbers.
As will many other coins in the Bonk eco. Why? Because they've got the best buyback programs of any launcher.
$URANUS (Jupiter Studio)
I think Jupiter is the sleeper launchpad because of the crazy amount of infrastructure they already have with perps, lending, and such. If you think they're not going to open up those advanced tools to key coin devs, I've got a flying cow to sell you.
URANUS is the key token right now, and the team at Jupiter was smart in letting the community decide what it would be before they got involved.
That month-long base before it extended was the community figuring it out, so to speak, and that extension only came when the Jupiter founding team came out in support of the coin.
Regarding BAGS and Believe, while they're both contenders, neither has a real horse in the race yet. When they do, I'll quickly address the coins that are showing strength, but in the interest of time, I'm going to leave them off for now.
The Launchpad Wars Are Heating Up: What Happens Next?
This is the $100-million-dollar question, and if I had the answer, I probably wouldn't need to write this blog.
Alas, I'll summarize and conclude with this:
The Launchpad Wars are heating up. Anything you read that suggests a current launchpad is dying or DOA, you should greet that with skepticism.
This game is fluid. The stakes are huge. Everyone wants to win, and the smear campaigns and psyops are going to worsen.
I'll be watching closely, but I need your help. If you see something interesting, say something. In fact, I want to take this moment to thank the fellow who reached out to me and told me about $PYTHIA today.
Props, dude. Hell of a chart. Don't know how I missed it.
You can email me at Jasonk@spot.dog or hmu on X. I would love to hear from you.
Also, if you're around tomorrow morning, please come hang and show some Spot love on JC's show. I go on at 9 am EST.
See you there!
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