Whale sell-offs hit PUMP despite buybacks: Will it derail the 16% recovery?

Some notable key players are exiting their Pump [PUMP] positions at a loss, a whale capitulation that could derail the ongoing recovery attempt. 

The native token of the Solana-based memecoin launchpad, Pumpfun, crashed by 78% in 2025. It appeared some big players were ready to cut their losses and move on. 

On the 1st of January, a 6-month whale holder reportedly moved 750 million PUMP tokens (worth $1.47 million) in Hyperliquid, likely for a sell-off.

This would result in a 51% loss, as the investor had spent $3 million on the PUMP position. 

In fact, several whale wallets ramped up sell-off from mid-November. 

Source: Santiment

Pump buyback fails to lift price

Pump.fun is one of the protocols that dedicate revenue for token value accrual via buybacks.

Although the pace of weekly buybacks had declined to less than $10 million by late 2025, this accounted for 100% of the revenue generated during that period. 

Source: Blockworks

In fact, the biggest buyback yet (1.46 billion PUMP worth $2.74 million) was made recently.  Despite a few whales also bidding for the token at current lows, the recovery has been somewhat lukewarm. 

Will PUMP recovery extend?

However, Front Runners projected that the token may have bottomed out. 

“Price is still so depressed that this level of buybacks should start showing up in the chart relatively soon (chart looks quite bottomed out).”

Even so, market sentiment was at record lows, going by the speculative interest in the Futures market.

The Open Interest (OI), or the overall number of opened contracts in the derivatives market, has declined from $1 billion to $142 million — An 85% decline. 

Source: Velo

This implied that overall demand for PUMP across the Futures markets crashed in Q3 and dropped further in Q4 2025. Unless these conditions improve, a recovery may be delayed. 

On the price charts, however, the December recovery triggered a MACD golden cross that could further raise recovery hopes.

The altcoin has recovered 16% during the Santa rally, but a recovery extension could be confirmed only if the 50-day Moving Average (MA) is reclaimed. 

Source: PUMP/USDT, TradingView 

Final Thoughts

• Whales were selling into the recent PUMP price recovery but a loss, signalling capitulation. 
• Speculative interest in the token crashed by 85% and was yet to fully recover.