Pump.fun terminated more than 40 employees across two rounds this year, according to a Sandmark investigation published Friday, and the people cut in the first round were weeks away from touching their token grants. Those grants were signed in 2025. A quarter of each allocation was scheduled to unlock in June 2026, one year on. The first layoffs landed in April.
At least one departing worker was in line for PUMP worth seven figures, the report said. Co-founder Noah Tweedale explained the cuts by saying the company had grown too quickly. Pump.fun, which operates through the UK entity Baton Corporation Ltd, has not answered the allegations publicly.
Three weeks after the June date, the insider lock-up opened
July 12 was the one-year anniversary of the ICO, and it was the day the team and early investor allocations came free. Pump.fun released 57.279 billion PUMP into 121 wallets, worth roughly $86.49 million at the price that week, with a three-year linear vesting schedule starting behind it. Two days later more than $19 million of that supply moved out of the team wallet. Over $6 million of it went in the first hour.
So the calendar reads like this. Staff grants due in June, to people already gone since April. Insider grants due in July, delivered.
The market braced for a much larger number
Coverage before the date put the release at 82.5 billion tokens worth about $127 million, close to 29% of circulating supply and roughly twice recent daily volume. What actually cleared was smaller by around 25 billion tokens.
| Figure | Priced before July 12 | Released July 12 |
|---|---|---|
| Tokens | 82.5 billion | 57.279 billion |
| Dollar value | about $127 million | about $86.49 million |
| Wallets | not disclosed | 121 |
| PUMP reaction | expected sell pressure | up more than 13% overnight |
PUMP rose after the unlock instead of sinking, which is what happens when traders have already sold a number that never arrives. The gap between the two columns is the part nobody chased.
PUMP still trades under half its ICO price
PUMP changed hands at $0.002113 on Friday, up 7.5% on the day and around 49% under the $0.004 ICO price. It sits roughly 77% below its September 2025 peak. Pump.fun is not short of money: DL News put revenue at $19.1 million for the month to July 22, with $764,802 booked on July 22 alone. Pump.fun also burned $370 million of PUMP and locked its buyback wallet earlier this year, a spend far above what the disputed employee grants would have cost.
Supply that arrives from insiders rather than buyers tends to set the tone for a token, as the World Foundation showed when it sold $65 million of WLD. The next tranches release monthly under the three-year schedule, so the pressure is spread rather than removed. Whether the April layoffs turn into a claim depends on what the 2025 grant documents say about termination, and none have been published. Crypto firms get read through their own disclosed numbers now, the way Coinbase's split between trading and subscription revenue was read last week, and Pump.fun has published none of the ones that would settle this.
