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BeginnerLesson 5 of 7 · 4 min read

How a coin is born and how it dies

From the spark to launch, the race to graduate, the run, the top, the bleed and the rare second life, with the numbers on how few coins survive.

On this page
  1. 1. The spark
  2. 2. Launch
  3. 3. The race to graduate
  4. 4. Discovery and the run
  5. 5. Distribution and the top
  6. 6. The bleed
  7. 7. Death, or a second life
  8. Quiz

Most memecoins live and die within a single day. A few last weeks, and a handful last years. Almost all of them follow the same path. Once you can see it, you'll know where a coin is when you find it, and who is likely selling to you.

The life of a memecoinA flow from top to bottom. Launch: a new coin is created. Bonding curve: buys push the price up. Most coins die here and never fill the curve. Graduation: the curve sells out. Pool: anyone can trade it, like any other coin. Then one of two endings: a runner, where buyers keep coming and the price holds or grows, or dead, where buyers leave and the price bleeds out.LaunchA new coin is createdBonding curveBuys push the price upMost die hereThey never fillthe curveGraduationThe curve sells outPoolAnyone can trade itRunnerBuyers keep coming,price holds or growsDeadBuyers leave,price bleeds out
The short version: a coin launches on a bonding curve, where most die. The few that fill it graduate to a pool, then either keep finding buyers or bleed out. The steps below add the spark before launch, and the run, top and bleed after graduation.

1. The spark

Something grabs attention: a viral animal, a headline, a post from a famous account, a new AI trend. When many coins ride the same kind of idea at once, traders call it a narrative or a meta.

The explorer surfs a huge glowing mint wave with a cat, a robot, a leaf and a frog icon inside it; a smaller wave rises behind and an old grey wave fades in the distance.

2. Launch

Someone, the dev, creates the coin on a launchpad. On pump.fun that takes a name, a ticker, a picture and a few clicks. The coin starts on a bonding curve: a fixed price formula where every buy pushes the price up and every sell pushes it down.

In the first second, sniper bots buy. Sometimes the dev buys from many wallets at once, called a bundle, so it looks like lots of separate buyers. Either way, a slice of the supply is often in fast hands before any normal person sees the coin.

A sniper's timelineA price line over four phases after a launch. In block zero, the very first moment, snipers buy. In the next seconds early buyers arrive. Over the next minutes the crowd piles in and pushes the price up. Then the snipers sell into the crowd and the price falls.PriceBlock 0Snipersbuy firstSecondsEarlybuyersMinutesThe crowdpiles inThenSnipers sellto the crowd
The first seconds of a launch, when bots buy before people can.

3. The race to graduate

If enough people buy, the bonding curve fills up and the coin graduates. Traders also say it bonded or migrated. Its money moves into a normal trading pool, which on pump.fun means a pool on PumpSwap. Most coins never get there. Bitquery counted about one graduation for every 58 pump.fun launches between November 2025 and October 2026.

4. Discovery and the run

Graduation puts the coin in front of a bigger crowd. It climbs trending lists, trading apps alert their users, and KOLs post it. New buyers pour in. This is where the big green candles happen.

5. Distribution and the top

While new buyers arrive, the early ones sell to them: snipers, insiders, the dev and the first wave of traders. This is called distribution. The top usually comes when the most people are excited, because that's when there are the most buyers to sell to.

6. The bleed

Volume dries up and the price slides, slowly or all at once. Holders call it a shakeout and promise it will come back. Most coins don't.

7. Death, or a second life

Bitquery found that 79% of pump.fun tokens traded only on their launch day, and only about 1.5% had any trade at all in their fifth week. A few get a second life. Holders may run a CTO, a community takeover, after the dev walks away. Or a stranger launches a vamp: a new copy of a coin that already ran, claiming to fix what went wrong the first time, like a dev who sold everything, and trying to catch the same wave with a cleaner start.

Example

A typical day, in numbers

Made-up numbers, but a very common shape. You buy $50 of the coin at a $10,000 market cap. All values are before fees.

  1. Step 1: 12:00. Launch at a market cap of a few thousand dollars. Snipers grab a chunk of the supply in the first seconds.
  2. Step 2: 12:20. $10,000. You buy $50 worth.
  3. Step 3: 12:45. The coin graduates and appears on charting sites.
  4. Step 4: 13:30. Peak at $900,000, which is 90 times your entry. Your $50 shows as $4,500.
  5. Step 5: 15:00. $300,000. Your $50 shows as $1,500.
  6. Step 6: Next morning. $40,000. Your $50 shows as $200.
  7. Step 7: One week later. $6,000 and almost no trading. Your $50 is worth $30, if anyone will buy it.

Everyone who bought where you did saw a 90x on their screen. Only the ones who sold near the top actually got it.

Check what you learned

0 of 5 answered

  1. Question 1What happens on a bonding curve?
  2. Question 2What does it mean when a coin 'graduates'?
  3. Question 3TrickyBitquery found that 79% of pump.fun tokens traded only on launch day. What's the smart takeaway?
  4. Question 4When does distribution usually happen?
  5. Question 5In this guide, what is a vamp?

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This guide is for learning. It is not financial advice. Most memecoins go to zero and most people who trade them lose money. Only ever trade what you can afford to lose.