Raising 600 million to a 51% loss: PUMP's largest project in 2025 has become the worst performer, and whales choose to give up

A whale has chosen to give up after holding PUMP for six months. According to the latest news, this whale spent $3 million to buy 75 billion PUMP tokens during PUMP’s public sale, and now this investment is only worth $1.47 million, facing a loss of $1.53 million, a decline of up to 51%. Even more noteworthy is that PUMP was once the largest token fundraising project in 2025, raising $600 million, but has now become one of the worst-performing projects. This stark contrast reflects the ongoing confidence crisis within the entire project ecosystem.

PUMP’s Fall: From Fundraising King to Loss King

The dramatic contrast in the project’s performance

According to data, PUMP was launched on May 14, 2025, with a current price of $0.001926 and a market cap of $68.175 billion. The numbers seem substantial, but they mask the project’s true difficulties:

What does this comparison tell us? Although PUMP completed the largest fundraising in 2025, its current price has fallen to 48% of the issuance price. In comparison, only 12% of the 533 projects launched in 2025 still trade above their issuance price. PUMP not only broke below its issuance price but also became a symbol of “worst performance.”

The deeper reasons behind the whale’s giving up

This whale’s surrender is not an isolated event. On-chain data shows that several major whales are adjusting their PUMP positions:

• A well-known long whale has closed its PUMP long positions and shifted to long other assets
• Two addresses bought 2.15 billion PUMP in the past 16 hours, attempting to bottom fish
• Other whales continue to hold their positions, waiting for a rebound

This indicates a divergence in market sentiment towards PUMP. The whale’s surrender may be based on the following judgments:

• Deterioration of the project’s fundamentals, limited rebound potential
• Difficulty returning to cost basis in the short term
• Better capital allocation opportunities elsewhere

The Cumulative Effect of Project Risks

Controversy over Pump.fun team shifting funds

What further fuels market panic is the series of actions by the Pump.fun project team, which have raised serious doubts. Reports indicate that from mid-November 2025, wallets associated with Pump.fun’s fundraising continuously transferred funds to the centralized exchange Kraken, with a total transfer of $605 million USDC by December 27.

The project team claims this is “routine financial management,” but this explanation has not alleviated market concerns. In fact, this series of operations triggered the following chain reactions:

• Increased suspicion about the true intentions of the project team
• Collective lawsuits against Pump.fun advancing in US courts
• Further collapse of investor confidence
• Increased pressure on the token price

Overall market confidence is lacking

From related information, market sentiment towards PUMP has already shifted noticeably. Multiple analyses point out that, as a popular project in the Solana ecosystem, PUMP is still in a passive adjustment phase. Although there was an 8.68% increase in the past 7 days, this is more of a rebound than a trend reversal.

Insights from On-Chain Whale Activity

The whale’s surrender also reflects a broader change in the overall attitude of on-chain whales. Monitoring data shows that at the end of December, whale activities included:

• Some whales actively closing long positions on PUMP and other altcoins
• Short positions increasing in size
• New buying forces emerging, but on a relatively small scale

This divergence indicates that the market has evolved from “collective bullishness” to “divided betting.” The whale’s surrender is a microcosm of this polarization.

Summary

The story of PUMP reminds us of several key issues: first, a large fundraising scale does not guarantee a bright project outlook and may instead bring greater redemption pressure; second, transparency from project teams is crucial for investor confidence—vague financial management can directly destroy market trust; finally, when multiple risk factors accumulate, even steadfast holders may choose to give up.

This whale’s $1.51 million loss essentially reflects a broader crisis of confidence in the ecosystem. Whether PUMP can regain market trust depends on how the project team responds to the fund transfer doubts and whether the market can find new support points. For other investors, this serves as a valuable lesson to consider deeply.