Raydium has introduced LaunchLab, a clone of Pump.fun featuring innovative pricing options, which has elicited mixed reactions within the crypto community.
Raydium has rolled out LaunchLab, a fresh platform intended for the creation and launch of tokens—akin to Solana’s Pump.fun, as previously reported. LaunchLab, based on the Pump.fun model, includes enhanced features. Unlike Pump.fun, LaunchLab empowers users to specify how a token’s price adjusts with increasing demand. Users can choose a linear, exponential, or logarithmic price change path. Beyond the post-launch price dynamics, third-party interfaces can connect with LaunchLab and impose their own transaction fees in addition to the standard charges.
An anonymous developer from Raydium indicated that LaunchLab had been under development for several months but was initially put on hold to avoid the impression that Raydium was directly competing with Pump.fun and other similar platforms.
Nonetheless, the company opted to launch LaunchLab after Pump.fun announced intentions to introduce its own automated market maker (AMM). The developer clarified that LaunchLab is not intended to supplant Pump.fun or any other launchpad but is designed to assist teams in creating and managing their tokens without starting from scratch.
While LaunchLab doesn’t explicitly position itself as a rival to Pump.fun, the timing raises eyebrows. It appears Raydium is looking to safeguard its revenue stream, given that Pump.fun has been directing considerable trading activity towards Raydium, significantly benefiting from trading fees.
When a token created on Pump.fun hits a market cap of $69,000, a portion of its liquidity is automatically transferred to a Raydium trading pool and subsequently burned. This mechanism effectively makes those tokens permanently inaccessible, thereby increasing the value of the remaining tokens. According to recent research, 41% of Raydium’s swap revenue from the past month has originated from memecoins associated with Pump.fun.
The announcement was met with varying sentiments, succinctly captured in a tweet by one user who noted that while fee compression benefits users, the community and narrative behind projects like Pump.fun are essential for their success—elements that might be challenging for Raydium to replicate.
Following the news, Raydium’s token RAY saw a 12% increase within a single day, indicating that the announcement was positively received.