Pump.fun signed Solana trader Kimchi as a creative partner on Tuesday, October 20, the same day the meme coin launchpad’s app started selling Rolex prize packs, as it tries to pull retail users from rival trading app Fomo. The pump crypto playbook used to be cheap tokens and fast launches. Now it’s a celebrity and a watch.
The PUMP price, the platform’s token, is up 9.16% in 24 hours to $0.004801, with $189.6 million traded. So is Pump.fun buying its way back to the top, or just buying headlines?
Kimchi is the first person to truly cross the chasm between crypto and pop culture; the first ever example of a trader becoming a celebrity.
He represents exactly where we’re heading: a massive social trading ecosystem that onboards retail and grows to 10x the size we were last… https://t.co/jJztM2hiNp
— alon (@a1lon9) October 20, 2026
DISCOVER: Best Meme Coins to Buy in 2026
Who Is Kimchi, and Why Did Pump.fun Sign Him?
In Kimchi crypto lore, the story is simple. Kimchi (@kimchi1x) is a pseudonymous meme coin trader who says he made about $40 million trading the official TRUMP token after its January 2025 launch. The claim made his name, and “a Kimchi” became crypto slang for $40 million. It has never been proven on-chain, and some traders have picked apart the luxury cars and watches that fill his feed.
That lifestyle is the point. Pump.fun co-founder Alon called him “the first ever example of a trader becoming a celebrity” and said the next wave of users “does not come from CT,” crypto Twitter, “it comes from the masses.” Kimchi will help set Pump.fun’s “creative direction,” he wrote.
The trenches reacted the way they always do. A KIMCHI meme coin hit about $35 million in market cap within an hour, and an account called Pump.fun Ecosystem posted that Kimchi “made $32,000,000 on Pumpfun 30 mins after joining.”
That number is paper value: on-chain analyst Ai Yi, reported by Odaily, says Kimchi held 75.32% of the coin’s supply, so most of that $32 million exists only until he tries to sell into a thin pool.
The same analyst spotted him withdrawing 1.35 billion PUMP, worth about $6.43 million, over three hours.
Pump Crypto War: Why Is Pump.fun Fighting So Hard for Users?
Because Fomo nearly took its crown. DefiLlama data shows the Fomo app, a Benchmark-backed social trading platform, earned more than Pump.fun’s launchpad on 13 days between September 2 and 16. It took about 60% of the two apps’ combined revenue in the first two weeks of September.
PUMP vs FOMO
Pump.fun hit back hard. In August, a leaked contract showed it offering Fomo traders a $20,000 signing bonus and $30,000 a month to move their trading to Pump.fun, with one condition: delete their Fomo accounts. A day earlier, it had rolled out a social feed and alerts much like Fomo’s.
It’s working, for now. Over the past 30 days, DefiLlama puts Pump.fun’s launchpad revenue at $45.4 million against Fomo’s $19 million. On Tuesday alone, the launchpad earned $1.46 million and Fomo $365,000. Fomo’s share is back to about one-fifth.
Pump.fun now sells Collector Crypt packs, NFTs backed by vaulted collectibles and redeemable for USDC. Packs run $25 to $5,000, some holding Rolexes worth $20,000. Roughly $2 million sold within hours: 4,013 packs yielded 18 watches, several won by its own influencers.
My entire timeline is flooded with low effort shills from pretty much every CT KOL promoting Pumpfun packs
Hoping to see a cycle where all of the OGs come back, teaching the rookies how it’s done and hopefully setting the tone for the entire cycle
— Aeon (@Cryptoaeon) October 20, 2026
DISCOVER: Democrats Are Favorites to Flip the House, and Crypto’s CLARITY Act Is Watching
PUMP Price Analysis: Can the Kimchi Bounce Hold?
PUMP jumped from $0.0044 to $0.00496 in a day, but it is still 29% below its October 4 high of $0.006806 and 46% under its September 2025 record of $0.008819.
PUMPUSDT Chart 1D
The levels on the daily chart:
- The line to clear: $0.004867, a swing high just above today’s price.
- The next target: $0.005447, then the October high at $0.006806.
- The first floor: $0.004659, the 50-day exponential moving average (EMA), which PUMP just reclaimed.
- The deeper floor: $0.00375, the last swing low, with the 200-day EMA at $0.003396 under it.
There is a steady buyer under the price. Pump.fun spends about half its daily revenue buying back and burning PUMP, roughly $900,000 a day this week, and its token page shows $490.7 million bought back so far, 17.3% of the supply.
Pump.fun has bought itself a celebrity, a prize machine and a lead. Whether the pump crypto crowd stays once the watches run out is the part no buyback can pay for.
DISCOVER: Meme coin supercycle: Top performers this week
nextThe post PUMP vs FOMO: Can Signing $40M TRUMP Trader Kimchi Help Pump.fun Win the Launchpad War? appeared first on Coinspeaker.