Raydium launches LaunchLab, a memecoin launchpad protocol looking to dethrone Pump.fun

The firm behind the Solana-based automated market maker (AMM) Raydium has launched its memecoin-making protocol, LaunchLab, which looks to compete with Pump.fun.

The firm behind Solana-based automated market maker (AMM) Raydium has launched its memecoin-making protocol, LaunchLab, which looks to compete with Pump.fun.

The arrival of LaunchLab on April 16 comes a month after Pump.fun, previously a key contributor to Raydium’s revenue, severed ties by moving its token migration from Raydium’s liquidity pools to its own new decentralized exchange, PumpSwap.

LaunchLab will be leveraging Raydium’s liquidity pools and aim to become the leading Solana memecoin launchpad.

Raydium says LaunchLab provides memecoin enthusiasts with customizable bonding curves and no migration fees, while tokens that raise 85 Solana (SOL) — currently worth $11,150 — will transition to Raydium’s AMM instantly.

Around 10 LaunchLab tokens have already crossed this threshold, according to the LaunchLab platform.

Tokens can be launched for free and creators can opt-in to earn 10% of trading fees from the AMM pool post-graduation, Raydium adds.

LaunchLab trading fees are set at 1%, and 25% of those fees will be used for Raydium (RAY) buybacks.

The news triggered a nearly 14% price surge of the RAY token, pushing it up to $2.41 four hours after the announcement before falling back to $2.21 at the time of writing, CoinGecko data shows.

PumpSwap volume on a tear

PumpSwap’s daily record in trading volume has now been broken five days in a row after posting $460 million on April 17.

The April 17 tally narrowly edged out the $454.9 million in trading volume seen on April 16, making it the fourth consecutive day above $400 million.

PumpSwap has now processed $7.3 billion worth of volume since it launched on March 22, DefiLlama data shows.