What Does Graduating on pump.fun Mean? Why Most New Tokens Never Graduate
Graduating on pump.fun means a token sold out its bonding curve and its liquidity moved to a pool. How it works, why most tokens never get there, and why it isn't safe.
On pump.fun, “graduating” means a new token has raised the set amount on the platform’s bonding curve and every sellable token on the curve has been sold, after which its liquidity migrates to a proper trading pool. Before that step it can only be bought and sold inside pump.fun. After it, the token is priced in a pool like any ordinary token.
The vast majority of new tokens never get there. In a 4-hour count we ran in mid-October, 6,646 new tokens launched on pump.fun, and only 117 graduated in the same period.
Before graduation: trading on the bonding curve
A freshly launched token is not on any exchange or in any pool. Every buy and sell happens inside pump.fun’s own program. The price is set by a predefined “bonding curve”: the more people buy, the higher the price on the curve; when someone sells, the price moves back down the same curve.
This stage needs no market maker and no one has to add liquidity in advance. A token can trade the moment it launches. The trade-off is that the price reacts to every trade. A few large buys can push it up, and a few sells can knock it straight back down.
The moment of graduation: funds migrate to a pool
When a token reaches the set market cap and the sellable supply on the curve is bought out, the curve is marked “complete”. A “migration” transaction then moves the curve’s funds and the reserved tokens into a proper trading pool, currently the platform’s own PumpSwap. According to pump.fun’s public program documentation, anyone can submit this migration transaction, so you will sometimes see several migration transactions for the same token on-chain, with only one succeeding. From then on, the price is set by supply and demand in the pool, and anyone can trade the token like any ordinary token.
On-chain, both the curve completion and the migration that follows can be looked up. The “graduations” figure we publish counts tokens whose curve completed; it does not separately check whether the migration has been executed.
Why most new tokens never graduate
- Too much supply, too little attention. Tens of thousands of new tokens launch every day, and only a tiny fraction get noticed. Without buyers, funds on the curve never build up.
- A large share are launched in bulk. It is not unusual for one address to launch hundreds of tokens a day. Most of these were never expected to find buyers.
- Early buyers tend to get in and out fast. As soon as the price is pushed up, someone sells, the funds on the curve fall back, and the token drifts further from the threshold.
Together, these three things make graduation the outcome for only a few tokens. Note that the 6,646 and 117 above come from the same period, but the tokens that graduated were not necessarily launched in those 4 hours. Dividing one by the other is only a rough guide. It does not mean “1.8 in every 100 new tokens will graduate”.
Graduated does not mean safe
Graduation only shows the token once raised enough funds. It does not show the price will rise, or that the team behind it can be trusted. After migrating to a pool, early holders can still sell, and the price can still go to zero quickly. Treating “graduated” as a reason to buy is a very common mistake.
How trading differs before and after graduation
Before graduation, the price is set entirely by the curve formula. The same 1 SOL buys more tokens early on the curve and fewer later. There is no order book and no other seller. Your counterparty is the program itself. The upside is that there is always a price to buy or sell at. The downside is that every trade moves the price directly, so your own order is part of what pushes the price up or down.
After graduation, the token trades in a pool, where the price is set by the ratio of the two assets in it, and your counterparty becomes the pool’s liquidity. The deeper the pool, the less a given trade moves the price. In a shallow pool, even a modest sell can knock the price down a long way. Many people assume a token is “safe” once it graduates. In practice, a freshly graduated token’s pool is usually not deep, and its swings are not necessarily smaller than on the curve.
Fees also differ between the two stages. On the curve you pay pump.fun’s rate, and on PumpSwap you pay the pool rate. For exact figures, refer to pump.fun’s official fee page. We update this when the platform changes them.
How to read the graduation rate
A single day’s graduation rate means little on its own. It moves with launch volume, market sentiment and platform rules. The direction over time is more useful.
- Launches up, graduation rate down: the supply of new tokens is growing faster than buying demand, and many tokens find no buyers at all.
- Launches flat, graduation rate up: money is actively chasing new tokens, and activity is rising.
- Both falling: the market as a whole is cooling, with fewer people launching and fewer buying.
We record daily graduations and the graduation rate on the graduation rate tracker. The longer the data runs, the easier these trends are to see.
How to check how close a token is to graduating
The pump.fun token page usually shows bonding-curve progress. In a block explorer, you can check whether the token has had a migration transaction. Don’t look at the percentage alone; look at who is buying. If most of the buying comes from a few new addresses, stay wary no matter how high the progress is.
The daily report on the home page is published once a day and summarizes new launches, graduations and graduation rate by the hour. The counting rules are on the Methodology page.
References
- pump.fun public program documentation (GitHub): pump-public-docs
