Raydium plans to launch Pumpfun competitor, will this spark a meme coin war?

Solana-based decentralized exchange (DEX) Raydium is allegedly planning to roll out LaunchLab, a new token launchpad that would serve as an alternative to Pump.fun, according to a Blockworks report on Tuesday.

Raydium plans to launch a new token generation platform as an alternative to Pump.fun

Raydium plans to introduce a new meme coin generator similar to Pump.fun, offering slightly distinct features. The new launchpad, LaunchLab, will function in the same way as meme coin generator Pump.fun, Blockworks first reported.

LaunchLab will offer different pricing models — linear, exponential, and logarithmic — to adjust a token's price based on demand. It will also allow third-party users to set their own fees.

Raydium is alleged to have been working on LaunchLab for months but kept it discreet. Raydium core contributor Infra stated that LaunchLab is among a suite of tools the decentralized platform plans to release.

Infra also mentioned that Raydium is not developing LaunchLab as a replacement for Pump.fun but rather as an alternative for teams looking for diversity.

However, the news comes nearly a month after claims that Pump.fun is working to launch its own automated market maker (AMM) liquidity pools.

The rumors claimed that Pump.fun planned to begin graduating tokens on its platform to its own AMM rather than moving them to Raydium.

Initially, when a token reaches a market cap of $69,000, Pump.fun initiates the process of adding liquidity to Raydium. This ensures that Raydium's AMM gains additional liquidity pools, enhancing its trading volume and usability.

Although Pump.fun has not made any formal claims to the rumors, its effect significantly impacted Raydium's native token, RAY, which has been down over 65% in the past month. 

However, the token has begun to show signs of recovery, noting a 15% rise in the past 24 hours following rumors of LaunchLab's debut.

LaunchLab's rollout could spark an app war with Pump.fun, where both platforms offer increased innovations to attract meme coin launchers and investors. As a result, the potential attention on the issue could stir a new wave of meme coin craze in the crypto market.

For example, competition between Solana and Base meme coins sparked the meme coin frenzy of Q2 2024.