A federal judge in New York has allowed plaintiffs to broaden their class-action lawsuit centered on Pump.fun, a Solana-based memecoin launch platform, opening the door for new allegations against Baton Corporation, Solana Labs, the Solana Foundation, and Jito Labs. The ruling does not resolve the merits of the dispute, but it gives the plaintiffs permission to move ahead with a second amended complaint that adds factual assertions and legal theories tied to alleged insider advantages during token launches.
The case, Aguilar v. Baton Corporation Ltd. et al. (Case No. 1:25-cv-00880), was originally filed in January 2025 by investors Diego Aguilar and Kendall Carnahan, with Michael Okafor later joining as lead plaintiff. At the center of the dispute is Pump.fun’s token-launch model, which uses an automated bonding-curve mechanism to price newly created tokens. Plaintiffs claim they suffered losses related to memecoin launches on the platform and argue that the system was marketed as broadly accessible and fair while certain participants may have had transaction advantages unavailable to ordinary users.
Court Allows New Evidence and Broader Claims
On Dec. 9, 2025, U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon of the Southern District of New York ruled that the plaintiffs could file a Second Amended Complaint. According to the court, the amendment was justified because the plaintiffs had obtained new materials in September 2025 and acted diligently afterward. Those materials reportedly included roughly 5,000 internal chat messages supplied by a confidential informant.
The newly expanded pleading is expected to add fresh factual allegations and additional causes of action while preserving the case’s earlier federal securities and RICO-related claims. The court also indicated that plaintiffs plan to include claims under the Lanham Act and New York state law. In practical terms, the ruling significantly widens the scope of the litigation, at least at the pleading stage, and allows the plaintiffs to test a more ambitious theory of liability against multiple Solana ecosystem actors.
The defendants had argued that the amendment should be denied on procedural grounds. Judge McMahon rejected that position, finding that permitting the revised complaint would not unduly prejudice the defense. The court noted that discovery had not yet begun and that pending motions to dismiss were still unresolved, reducing the risk that the new filing would unfairly disrupt the litigation timeline.
Core Allegations Focus on Transaction Priority and Token Launch Access
The heart of the plaintiffs’ case is the allegation that supposedly fair token launches on Pump.fun were, in reality, shaped by infrastructure-level advantages. According to the filings, validator infrastructure on Solana and transaction-ordering tools associated with Jito may have enabled favored traders to purchase tokens at the lowest available prices before retail transactions were processed.
The complaint frames this as a conflict between public marketing and actual market structure. Plaintiffs argue that if certain insiders or preferred participants could reliably gain earlier access to newly launched tokens, then the launch process was not meaningfully equal for all users. That claim is especially consequential in memecoin markets, where pricing can move sharply within seconds of launch and early entries can produce outsized gains compared with later buyers.
Because Pump.fun relies on a bonding-curve model, the timing of each transaction can materially affect purchase price. In such systems, earlier buyers often receive lower prices, and any mechanism that changes transaction order can influence trading outcomes. That dynamic appears central to the plaintiffs’ argument that transaction priority was not just a technical feature, but a source of allegedly unfair economic advantage.
What the Ruling Does — and Does Not — Decide
It is important to note that the court’s decision is procedural, not final. Judge McMahon did not determine that the alleged conduct actually occurred, nor did the court rule that any defendant is liable. Instead, the decision simply allows the plaintiffs to revise and expand their complaint so those allegations can be formally presented and challenged in the next phase of the case.
That distinction matters. In U.S. civil litigation, permission to amend a complaint often reflects the court’s view that the proposed changes are timely and not unfairly prejudicial, not that the claims have already been proven. The defendants will still have the opportunity to contest the revised complaint through renewed dismissal motions and, if the case survives, later through discovery and potentially summary judgment or trial proceedings.
Still, the ruling is meaningful because it preserves momentum for the plaintiffs and ensures that the litigation will proceed with a broader factual and legal record than before. For the defendants, that means continued exposure to a case that now reaches beyond Pump.fun itself and more directly implicates parts of the surrounding Solana ecosystem.
Timeline for the Next Phase
The court set a clear schedule for the next round of filings. Plaintiffs must submit the Second Amended Complaint by Dec. 19, 2025. Defendants’ motions to dismiss are due by Jan. 23, 2026, and replies are scheduled for February 2026. Those deadlines set up the next major procedural battle: whether the expanded case can survive dismissal and move into discovery.
Discovery has not yet started, a point the court specifically cited when explaining why amendment would not unfairly burden the defense. That means many of the factual disputes at the center of the case remain untested in the formal evidentiary process. If the claims survive the next dismissal round, the litigation could move into a more consequential stage where internal communications, trading records, and technical infrastructure details become more central.
Broader Debate Across the Solana Community
The case has also generated heavy discussion across social media, where reactions have ranged from alarm to outright dismissal. Some critics have portrayed the lawsuit as a potentially serious challenge to confidence in Solana-linked token launch infrastructure, especially if the allegations suggest that retail users were systematically disadvantaged in fast-moving memecoin markets.
Others in the Solana community have pushed back, arguing that the lawsuit should not be read as proof of a structural flaw in the blockchain itself. In that view, the dispute is better understood as a legal challenge tied to one memecoin launchpad and to familiar transaction-ordering issues seen across permissionless networks. Supporters have also pointed out that debates over validator behavior, ordering priority, and forms of front-running are not unique to Solana and have appeared in discussions around other blockchain ecosystems, including Ethereum.
That divide in interpretation is likely to persist. For critics, the case raises questions about fairness in retail-facing token launches and whether infrastructure providers can be drawn into liability when users allege informational or execution asymmetries. For defenders, the lawsuit may amount to an attempt to reframe common on-chain market mechanics as misconduct, even though such mechanics have long existed in decentralized systems.
Why the Case Matters
Regardless of the ultimate outcome, the litigation matters for several reasons. First, it tests how far plaintiffs can go in connecting a token launch platform to the underlying blockchain entities and transaction-ordering tools that support on-chain activity. Second, it underscores how memecoin markets — often dismissed as speculative sideshows — can generate complex legal questions when retail losses, marketing claims, and infrastructure behavior intersect. Third, the inclusion of federal securities, RICO, Lanham Act, and state-law theories shows that plaintiffs are trying to build a multi-layered legal framework around alleged misconduct in crypto launch environments.
For now, the court has not said the plaintiffs are right. It has said they may proceed with a broader version of their case. The next decisive moment will come when the second amended complaint is filed and the defendants respond. Until then, the Pump.fun litigation remains a closely watched dispute at the intersection of memecoin speculation, blockchain infrastructure, and U.S. class-action law.