Author: 137Labs

On February 13, 2026, one of the most controversial and high-traffic projects in the Solana ecosystem, Pump.fun, announced the launch of what seems like a "small feature," but could impact its growth logic: users can allocate "creator fees" to any GitHub account through the Pump.fun mobile app. The official announcement also hinted at the introduction of more "social" capabilities in the future.

To outsiders, this seems like "an additional way to tip"; for Pump.fun, it resembles a pipeline upgrade of the fee distribution system: moving from a previously fixed or limited profit-sharing model to a configuration of capital flow that is "user-directed and can overflow." It’s not just a UI change; it's a change in the incentive structure.

1) What is Pump.fun: Lowering the threshold for issuing tokens to "as low as posting"

Pump.fun is commonly referred to as Pump, a cryptocurrency issuance and trading platform running on Solana: users require little to no technical background; they just need to upload an image, fill in a name and ticker, and can quickly create tokens and trade them on the platform; once the tokens meet certain conditions, they can also "graduate" to decentralized exchanges for continued circulation. The platform was launched on January 19, 2024, founded by Noah Tweedale, Alon Cohen, Dylan Kerler, and others.

This product form has directly lead to a fact: the vast majority of tokens lack functionality and are more classified as meme coins. While "issuing tokens is as simple as posting," the supply of new coins has exploded; media reports by January 2025 show that the total number of meme coins issued by the platform has reached "millions," and it has been described as one of the fastest-growing cases in crypto applications.

However, the flip side is also very straightforward: the failure rate of new coins is extremely high, with most projects unable to maintain sustained trading popularity, let alone enter more mature DeFi scenarios. This is the fundamental contradiction of Pump.fun—an extremely low threshold brings an enormous supply, while also leading to a great deal of noise and elimination rate.

2) Controversy and cost: When "issuing tokens + live streaming" turns into an attention race

A highly discussed segment in the development history of Pump.fun is the "attention arms race" that formed after the introduction of live streaming in 2024: project teams, in order to make their coins visible among a vast number of new coins, will do everything possible to attract traffic and create momentum. The result was that the platform faced a lot of criticism for content standards and risk issues for a period, and the live streaming feature also experienced repeated suspensions and relaunches.

At the same time, regulatory pressure has gradually become more apparent. For example, the platform had previously imposed restrictions on UK users due to warnings from the UK's financial regulators; debates concerning whether it involves unregistered securities trading, and whether investor protection is adequate, have long existed.

In other words, from the very beginning, Pump.fun has not just been a "tool"; it resembles a "issuance and trading factory" that mixes financial speculation, social dissemination, and anonymous culture together. This also explains why every adjustment it makes to "fees," "incentives," and "social structures" is magnified and interpreted by the market.

3) What this new feature changes: Connecting creator fees "to GitHub identity"

The core point of this update can be summarized in one sentence:

Users can now direct creator fees to any GitHub account (completed through the Pump.fun mobile app).

The significance lies not in "whether it can be distributed", but in "who it is distributed to": when the target of allocation expands from "on-chain wallets/project roles" to GitHub accounts, Pump.fun is essentially integrating a set of "the most commonly used identity systems in the developer world" into its incentive chain.

This brings three layers of potential changes:

Productizing the act of supporting developers: Many people are willing to tip open-source authors but lack a convenient path; Pump.fun has included a "pay developers" button into high-frequency trading and token issuance scenarios.

Enabling external contributors to be included in incentives: Not necessarily project team's members, anyone who contributes to tools, scripts, or community content may be "named" to receive fees.

A stronger narrative for dissemination: Binding the attention of meme coins with open-source developers makes it easier, at least in rhetoric, to package it from "pure speculation" to "supporting builders."

The official mention of "more social features to be added" also suggests that Pump.fun is pushing itself from being a "token issuance platform" toward something more like a "content/community platform."

4) Why do it now: From "fee design experiments" to "more market-oriented distribution"

The reason why the outside world is paying attention to this update is that it is not an isolated action, but more like a continuation and correction of Pump.fun's fee structure experiments over the past period.

In Pump.fun's growth flywheel, "fees" has always been a key variable: the platform generates revenue through trading commissions and "graduation" mechanisms, and then returns a portion of that revenue back to the ecosystem in various forms, driving more issuance and trading. Community discussions around "Dynamic Fees," "Project Ascend," and other proposals are plentiful and fundamentally focus on solving the same problem—how to make the incentives for trading and issuance more sustainable and not just explosive during a surge of popularity.

This time extending the profit-sharing channel to GitHub reads as "supporting developers" and can also be interpreted as a more pragmatic strategy: connecting a pipe at the place most concentrated with developers to see if it can bring in new users, narratives, and funds.

5) Potential impact: What does "capital flow" mean for the platform and tokens?

From a business and financial structure perspective, the biggest variable of this function is: whether creator fees will "overflow" from their original closed loop.

· If the main outcome of this mechanism is "new users, new projects, new trading volume," then the overall fee pool of the platform may expand, the flywheel will become stronger, and Pump.fun can present it as a positive feedback in the "builder economy."

· However, if it primarily involves "redistributing existing fees" and taking revenue that was originally retained within the system, then the internal return strength of the platform may weaken, and the ultimate effect may not be as optimistic as the narrative suggests.

Of course, the short-term market generally favors "stories": using GitHub as the recipient strengthens the connections between Pump.fun and "developers" and "open-source," which may give it an additional card in the narrative competition among similar issuance platforms.

6) Risks and controversies won't automatically disappear: stronger socialization ≠ lower risks

It is important to emphasize: distributing money to GitHub does not inherently equate to a healthier ecosystem.

The core problem of Pump.fun still lies on the supply side: too many new coins, too short lifecycles, and fierce competition for attention, which can easily lead to phenomena such as "soft rugs," "pump and dump," and "short-term emotional trading." The platform can provide more information to assist in judgment, but it cannot fundamentally eliminate speculative behavior.

If Pump.fun continues to promote "more social features," it may move closer to a hybrid of "content platform + financial assets"—this would increase user stickiness but would also mean content governance, risk warnings, and compliance pressures would become more complex.

7) Conclusion: A pipe leading to GitHub underpins Pump.fun's next stage narrative

Allocating creator fees to GitHub accounts seems like a "small update," but it reflects a clear trend for Pump.fun: moving from merely being "token issuance and trading infrastructure" to a product form that is more social in nature and emphasizes identity and relational chains.

The question it aims to answer is actually very simple: in a cycle of both enthusiasm and fatigue for meme coins, how can Pump.fun transform itself from a "traffic factory" into a "sustained operational ecological machine"?

The pipeline of "identity and developer assets" that GitHub represents might be a bet in its attempt to redefine its boundaries.

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