Pump.fun lays off 40+ staff ahead of PUMP unlock, report says

Pump.fun, a Solana-based memecoin issuance platform, laid off more than 40 employees ahead of PUMP’s first vesting unlock, leaving them ineligible for token allocations worth millions of dollars, Sandmark reported. Sandmark said Pump.fun co-founder Noah Tweedale told staff in March that the company had grown too quickly, making it harder to move quickly on work. Affected employees received one week of severance for each month worked, and their contracts were terminated in early April. The issue, according to the report, is that those employees also lost eligibility to receive PUMP tokens that had been scheduled to begin unlocking this summer. A second round of layoffs took place in July, bringing the number of employees dismissed over the past two months to more than 40. Sandmark added that Pump.fun has generated $1.3 billion in cumulative revenue and is posting $1 million in daily profit, but recently became subject to a fine after missing a deadline to file accounting reports with UK authorities.