Going long on Pump, going short on humanity: In the 8B market value, Pump Fun is a great scholar debating the scriptures

TL;DR

Pump's greatest insight is that he understood earlier than anyone else that this generation of young people is the "PVP generation";
Pump is a mass media phenomenon based on the values of the PVP generation, equivalent to Truth Social and Bluesky;
The game of live streaming coins is no different from other coins, understood from the perspective of the track and ecosystem;
The reason Pump must focus on live streaming coins is to capture Taker traffic from trading platforms;
My fundamental reason for being a Pump maxi is a deep understanding of the darkness of human nature and the inevitability of the world moving towards chaos;

Understanding the PVP Generation

For any market, the decisive factor is the audience.

Pump's greatest moat is his audience, which I referred to as the "PVP generation" born after 2005 in my previous discussions.

Why?

The traditional moats we talk about: liquidity, technology, regulatory barriers, etc., are based on the economic theory of the "rational person" assumption—individuals in economic activities are self-interested and can rationally weigh pros and cons to maximize their economic benefits at minimal cost. BTC mining games, DeFi, token economic models, etc., all operate under this premise.

Of course, in practice, not everyone can be a saint. The inheritance of rationality is institutional; as long as those who hold influence in the economic participants are "rational," these models generally still hold.

The problem lies here: the PVP generation is the first generation to grow up under the discourse power of social media.

The characteristics of this generation are:

Unlike our generation, they did not struggle for basic needs during childhood; they have no worries about food and clothing.
The influence of "irrational amplifiers" like social media on them far exceeds that of rational education.
In most countries, this generation has never experienced the global economic growth that their parents did; instead, they face a sharp reduction in job opportunities due to technological replacement and industrial transfer.

As a result, their cognitive style is "irrational," based on labels rather than rational analysis.

Moreover, the proportion of the smartest individuals engaging in zero-sum industries has significantly increased, including finance, real estate, entertainment, and other service industries. The essence of these industries is to take money from others' pockets and put it into their own, dividing the cake rather than making it.

If you don't believe it, you can see that in the past decade, the most profitable companies in China have all shifted to finance, and many highly educated individuals are now doing live streaming and becoming internet celebrities. In the U.S., most young people lean left, focusing not on the right's "make America great again" approach of "making the cake," but rather on "social justice warrior" narratives of dividing the cake.

Zero-sum, which the previous generation viewed as "shearing leeks," has become the new normal for this generation. Therefore, it is meaningless to judge them using past universal morals and values.

They are indifferent to survival issues, and their understanding of achievement is "how many followers I have" and "how I go viral," rather than how to build a "business" like their parents. They even disdain their parents' values.

Behaviorally, this generation may lack professionalism but has strong initiative, knowing how to purposefully "attract attention," detesting any form of judgment, even the slightest, and having a very low tolerance for delayed gratification.

The Core Moat of Pump

Pump's success primarily stems from understanding the demands of the PVP generation:

No moral judgment
Super timely feedback stimulation
Low barriers to entry

The latter two are addressed through product features, which many claim "have no moat."

Thus, the brilliance of Pump lies in shaping a value system that does not adhere to traditional moral judgments; as long as you win and attract attention, you are impressive. Pump will never hypocritically tell you "community first," "long-term value," "the team has vision," etc.

Even if you rug like $Quant or $HANDS, the official and community accounts will only treat you as a new meme to be edited into videos. There is no concept of rights protection in the entire Pump ecosystem.

There are also various news coins, political coins (even so-called "dead coins"), which may be censored on other platforms or even Twitter itself, making it impossible to monetize. But in Pump Fun, it can happen.

Whether it's the devs or the trenches of the PVP generation, they hate being rug-pulled but hate being preached to even more, being told that what they participate in "is a scam, is beastly, is shearing leeks." For the incels of the PVP generation, the trenches are trenches, but being denied in terms of values is a visceral disgust.

Like it or not, values are the foundation of mass media.

Just as right-wing figures like old Deng detest being silenced on Twitter during Jack Dorsey's era, leading to Truth Social; left-wing figures like old Deng detest Musk's X as "Fascist Rhetorics," thus moving to Bluesky. People choose their echo chambers based on their value inclinations. The PVP generation feels that everyone else is old Deng, so they choose PumpFun.

If you ask me why I understand this so well, it might be because "understanding birth through birth."

The Game of Pump Live Streaming Coins

Last year, during a conversation with friends, I clearly saw the potential of live streaming coins and believed it was the only track last year that had not been falsified (Pump's interruption of live streaming was due to regulatory changes, not because it couldn't continue). This became a major reason why I supported @Sidekick_Labs at that time.

Of course, the questions raised by the wizard were also very representative: web 2 is about tipping, so streamers are motivated to keep streaming to earn money. Web 3 is about giving; if streamers have already bought in at the bottom, why would they continue streaming after the price drops? Just to earn transaction fees? If a lot of coins go to zero, does the game keep getting pushed forward? Is the market cap getting lower and lower?

First, his game theory is correct, but it is based on a specific coin. If we consider the track, we need to think in reverse: if it weren't for live streaming, would it be the same?

Whether it's the previous AI or Bonk's CTO, or ICM promoted by Solana, or even not limited to on-chain launches, including exchange VC coins, devs have always had the advantage of being able to dump and walk away.

The only factors that can influence whether a team abandons a project are the initial costs and whether there is a continuous cash flow. The higher the initial costs and the continuous cash income, the project party will not abandon the project. When I retweeted the PUMP ICO video on July 9, I said the same thing about Pump itself, and at that time, I was heavily criticized, with many believing that Alon was a beast and that Pump would definitely rug.

Looking back now, is that the case? Similarly, if a streamer rugs once, they are unlikely to stream again; it's a one-time deal. If they can continuously earn creator fees like Bagwork, why would they want to kill a cash cow?

Second, the live streaming industry in web 2 is an industrialized system; streamers are just the stage (corresponding to the memecoin perspective), while the real driving force is the buying power, finding big sponsors, and the guilds and arms dealers that wash the flow of funds. Streamers don't take home much money.

Live streaming coins are the same; the success of the coin largely depends on market makers (MM). Streamers are unlikely to be MMs, so Pump is responsible for attracting wannabes, while MMs take on the guild's responsibilities.

There are two points here:

The most profitable part of a casino is not the gambling itself, but the flow of funds, with a ratio of about 1:9;
For applications like ICM or AI, as an MM, you need to control a team; for live streaming coins, you only need to control one person.

Why Must Pump Focus on Live Streaming Coins?

This is Pump's wisest decision.

The entire traffic lifeline on the Solana chain does not lie in the platform but in the trading platforms, specifically Axiom.

Solana can systematically smear Pump, encouraging VC funds to support Bonk or other platforms, pushing Useless, but cash flow and attention are two different things. Users trading either Bonk or Pump's coins do so through Axiom; no matter what story you tell, it's all the same CA.

However, live streaming is different; the content of live streaming directly translates to K-lines. Placing orders while watching a live stream provides asymmetric information advantages compared to watching Axiom's K-lines. Live streaming is not a specific narrative; it is itself a carrier of traffic. The order volume will genuinely tilt towards Pump.

Therefore, the key data for the next phase is to see whether Pump's front-end order volume can capture market share from Axiom, rather than looking at the ratio between Pump and other platforms.

Why Did I Support Pump So Early?

For quite some time, I was almost the only Pump Maxi in the Chinese crypto community. If I had to say why:

I have led a dev team myself;
I have worked on a launchpad but failed, understanding why I saw other launchpads fail in Solana and witnessing Pump's brilliance;
I got to know Pump's early investors early on, gaining firsthand insights and witnessing the Pump team's working methods and logic;
I spent a lot of time with young people;
I have been in the market for 10 years; perhaps I am not proficient in secondary markets, but I understand human nature, especially its darker sides. My understanding of the world's underlying trends is that it is moving towards chaos, and chaos is a ladder;
As I said, the Pump team is like sharks, reading Napoleon's conquerors while sitting on the toilet.

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