Solana Meme Coin Launchpad Pump.Fun Drops Livestreaming Amid Backlash

Pump.fun, the prominent Solana-based token launchpad, said Monday that it has “paused” the livestreaming feature on its platform, which enabled users to stream a video feed alongside the creation of a meme coin.

Tokens that utilized the livestreaming feature can no longer be found in a category using the drop down menu on the Pump.fun home page, and no longer have a video feed embedded on their respective Pump.fun pages. After the feature disappeared, the company confirmed that it was removed in the interest of public safety.

“To ensure the absolute safety of our users, we will be pausing the live streaming functionality on the site for an indefinite time period until the moderation infrastructure is ready to deal with the heightened levels of activity,” the Pump team said in a statement.

The feature had created considerable controversy and concern across the crypto community, with many users asking for the feature to be shut down in the last few days as content being livestreamed ranged from animal cruelty to proposed self-harm. Some notable figures in the space suggested that they would no longer use the platform if the feature remained.

Pseudonymous Pump.fun co-founder Alon previously addressed “legitimate concerns” over livestreaming content on November 22, alerting the community via Twitter (aka X) that “although we strongly stand for free speech and expression, it’s our responsibility to ensure that users don’t see clearly repulsive/dangerous content and that bad actors aren’t given a platform to act as they wish.”

The platform utilizes a content moderation team to moderate illicit content on the site, including “images, videos, live streams, and comments.”

Pump.fun previously came under fire upon the release of its tokenized video feature, which allowed users to create a meme coin using a video or GIF file.

Pump.fun is the largest token launchpad on Solana, averaging more than 50,000 new coins daily in the last week. It has helped fuel the surge of meme coins over the course of 2024, with multiple tokens from the platform briefly reaching the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap.

Edited by Andrew Hayward