Pump Fun paid almost $700,000 in callout rewards to its top 50 earners, and most of the promoted tokens had very small market capitalizations, according to research from crypto analyst Dethective cited by Protos.
The analysis found that 80% of those top earners shared tokens with an average market cap below $100,000. On Pump Fun, traders receive daily payouts based on how much trading volume their publicly shared token calls attract from other users.
Dethective charted the platform’s top 50 callout reward earners, who collectively brought in nearly $700,000. Only two callers had an average median market cap above $1 million, while eight had an average median market cap between $100,000 and $1 million.
In a post on X, Dethective wrote: "Pumpfun distributed ~700k in callout rewards to 50 accounts. Did they deserved it? A list with the amount of calls and the median token Marketcap."
The report said 12 callers averaged a market cap of less than $10,000, adding to criticism that a meaningful share of the rewards went to extremely small tokens.
Martin Shkreli made almost $11,000 after joining this week
Protos said Martin Shkreli joined Pump Fun this week. Memecoins closely tied to him were down 94% in 24 hours, yet he still made almost $11,000 from callout rewards.
Dethective’s data showed that Shkreli shared 11 callouts with an average market cap rate of $220,000.
Reward totals varied sharply by call count
The highest callout reward earner was Pump Fun user Slingoor, who made $47,500 from 215 shared callouts. Their average market cap rate was almost $149,000.
At the other end of the top-50 list, the lowest top earner made $6,100 from 624 shared callouts, with an average market cap rate above $13,000.
One top-50 earner shared 2,417 calls and made $6,800. Their average market cap rate was $3,600.
Users questioned whether the system favored quantity
According to Protos, onlookers said many of the users receiving these rewards were already key opinion leaders brought onto the platform. Users also complained that Pump Fun was rewarding the sheer number of callouts rather than their quality.
Pump Fun Chief Operating Officer Alon Cohen said the firm has "significantly reduced the weighting of the number of callouts that a user produces within the callout rewards calculation."
Pump Fun token is up 133% over the last month
The report added that Pump Fun’s token has increased by 133% over the last month. Even so, it is still down 46% from its all-time high last September.
