Alan, I think some listeners, maybe most listeners, will see the title of this episode when they clicked on it and they'll say like, oh, wow, pump fun on bankless. That is a weird combo. Why bankless? Of all the podcasts that are out there, there are more like Solana interested podcasts. There's, you know, there's plenty of options. Why bankless?

Welcome to Bankless, where we explore the frontier of internet money and internet finance.

Today on the show, I'm hosting a conversation with Alon, a co-founder of PumpFund, the meme coin launchpad on Salonat.

The idea of PumpFund being on Bankless is probably already surprising to many listeners.

Bankless has not necessarily been the strongest advocate of meme coins, mainly due to their

inert nature and destructive market behavior that Memcoins tends to create. I did my best in this

interview to give Alan both a fair shot explaining what he sees in meme coins while also not ignoring the

reality that Pump Fun has been at the forefront of one of our industry's most extractive

market cycles, leaving behind it a trail of destroyed capital as what started out as a relatively

innocent meta of fund speculation turned into structural and systematized extraction into the hands

of just a few players.

I went into this interview with Alan cautiously. I've never met the guy before and I'm wary

of the idea of platforming a project that might just inherently be stuck in creating only

toxic outcomes for its users. I'm also wary of the idea that Pump Fund might be attempting to

use bankless to launder its reputation

as it tries to turn a page with its product offerings with the recent introduction of PumpSwap, an AMM Dex on Salana.

During this interview, I also couldn't get the idea of Operation Berkshire out of my head.

For those I don't know, Operation Berkshire was a conspiracy by Big Tobacco

to publicly deny the existence of health risks associated with smoking and also fund

pro-tobacco research and generally undermine scientific consensus about tobacco. The tobacco

industry tried to influence policy and public opinion through front groups and media campaigns

in pursuit of market growth by their industry. There is a chance that meme coins are inherently

...