Pump.fun cut staff two months before token vesting, costing one ex-employee $1M+
Ecosystem ·
Documents and recordings reviewed in an exclusive report describe layoffs at the Solana memecoin launchpad timed just ahead of a scheduled PUMP token unlock, leaving at least one former staffer without a seven-figure allocation.
Pump.fun, which lets users mint memecoins in seconds and has generated roughly $1.3bn in lifetime revenue with more than 20.8mn Solana tokens created on its platform, dismissed a batch of employees in early April, according to Sandmark. A termination email from head of talent Lloyd McCarthy and a recorded meeting from late March show co-founder Noah Tweedale attributing the cuts to the company having grown too quickly to keep moving fast. Severance was set at one week of salary for every month worked.
The timing is central to the dispute: staff had signed token grant agreements in mid-June 2025 under which a quarter of their PUMP allocation would vest one year later, meaning those let go in April missed that unlock by roughly two months. At today's prices, one former employee's forfeited allocation is worth seven figures, even with PUMP trading around 79% below its 2025 high of $0.0089.
A second round of departures reportedly followed in mid-July, and an X account calling itself ExPumpEmployee has since posted alleged termination emails, including a claim that one person was cut a single day before their token vesting date. Former staff put the total number affected over the past two months at more than 40, though Sandmark says it could not independently verify these figures. The cluster is covered by two distinct sources, including a summary noted by wublockchain.xyz.
The episode adds to an existing legal and reputational overhang. Pump.fun operates as Baton Corporation Ltd in the UK, a jurisdiction it has blocked users from accessing since December 2024 after the Financial Conduct Authority flagged possible unauthorized financial services activity; the company remains on the regulator's warnings list. Baton's most recent filed accounts date to the year ending 31 March 2024, when it listed three employees, and its filing for the period to 30 September 2025 is now overdue, exposing it to a £375 penalty band under Companies House rules. Daily revenue is still estimated at around $1mn.
Neither Tweedale nor co-founder Alon Cohen responded to requests for comment. Unresolved questions include the exact scale of the July layoffs, whether additional employees lost unvested PUMP allocations, and how Pump.fun will address its overdue corporate filings.