Pump.fun Team Allegedly Cashes Out $400M in USDC, Sparking Transparency and Legal Concerns

On-chain analysts have uncovered significant financial movements involving the Pump.fun team, raising alarms over transparency and investor protection. According to EmberCN's report on November 24, 2025, the team transferred approximately 405 million USDC to Kraken over the previous week, followed by about 466 million USDC moving from Kraken to Circle, which is likely a redemption process.

These funds are linked to Pump.fun's private placement in June, where institutions purchased 180 billion PUMP tokens (18% of the 1 trillion supply) at $0.004 per token, raising an estimated $720 million. This gave insiders and early investors control over roughly 55% of the supply at launch, skewing market dynamics from the outset.

PUMP is currently trading at $0.002643, down 35% over the past month and below its ICO price. Analysts at Coincodex predict a further decline to around $0.001929 by December 23, citing bearish sentiment, high volatility, and an Extreme Fear reading of 13 on the Fear & Greed Index.

The project faces additional challenges, including multiple class-action lawsuits in New York alleging the sale of unregistered tokens and misleading users about returns. Despite efforts to boost activity with features like 'Mayhem Mode,' daily active wallets have dropped to under 100,000, and bot abuse has limited effectiveness amid rising competition from platforms like DegenSafe.fun and four.meme.