Pumpfun continues to expand its presence in the memecoin trading stack and now challenges trading bots in what some investors are calling Pumpfun’s “Phase 2.”
Memecoin launchpad pumpfun announced its newest acquisition today, closing a deal to add Padre, a multichain trading terminal, to its ecosystem.
Padre is a memecoin trading terminal live on Solana, Base, Ethereum, and BNB Smart Chain, and looks to compete in the trading bot space, which is currently dominated by Axiom. Padre has a market share of around 5%, according to Dune Analytics.
The acquisition marks pumpfun’s latest move towards controlling the entire memecoin trading stack, a strategy which was first telegraphed after it launched PumpSwap in March, replacing Raydium as the de facto decentralized exchange (DEX) for pumpfun tokens.
PUMP is up 9% on the news. However, PADRE token holders have been left in the dust, with the token cratering by 78% today after it was announced that PADRE would have no further utility.
While PUMP holders are celebrating the move, many Padre users are furious, claiming that the team promised to implement revenue sharing and buybacks, only to abandon the PADRE token.
Trading terminals’ reluctance to release tokens has been a touchy subject for memecoin traders. The industry’s previous stalwart, Photon, “confirmed” its token back in July 2024. Yet nearly a year and a half later, there is no token, and Photon’s revenue is down 99% from its all-time high of $32 million in January to just $344,000 this month.
