This candid interview with Noah Tweedale, the 21-year-old co-founder of Pump.fun, offers rare insights into one of crypto's most controversial yet successful platforms. Learn how they generated $840M in revenue, raised $1.2B in their ICO, and plan to compete with TikTok and YouTube. Get Tweedale's unfiltered takes on gambling criticism ("Just have a higher IQ"), why he calls traditional crypto companies "failures," and his vision for an "everything app" combining social media, trading, and banking. Discover their creator incentive strategies, mobile-first approach, and cultural commentary on how memecoins represent young people's attempt to "escape the matrix." Essential reading for understanding crypto's polarizing success stories and digital culture evolution. 

Guests: Noah Tweedale, Co-founder of Pump.fun

Hosts: Laura Shin, Host of Unchained

Channel: Unchained

When: September 11, 2025

Laura Shin: As I'm sure you're very well aware, a lot of people criticize Pump Fun and like similar platforms saying it's gambling or it's the memecoin casino. And I wondered what your responses to those critics. I know just like have a higher IQ, I guess. Hi everyone. Welcome to Unchained, your no hype source for all things crypto. I'm your host, Laura Shin. This is the September 11th, 2025 episode of Unchained. The crypto world is buzzing. On October 1st and 2nd, 25,000 people will be at Token 249 Singapore, the largest crypto event in the world, featuring headline speakers like Eric Trump, Vlad Tennv, Tom Lee, Bology, Screeny, Vosen, and Arthur Hayes. Visit asia.token20249.com now to get 15% off tickets with the code unchained. Today's guest is Noah Tweedell, co-founder of Pump Fun. Welcome, Noah.

Noah Tweedale: Hey, how's it going?

Laura Shin: I'm really good. I'm so excited to chat with you guys. Pump Fund is clearly one of the biggest crypto successes in the last couple years. It's become one of the fastest companies to reach not only profitability but also rake in huge amounts of revenue. you recently crossed $840 million in revenue. your company also recently raised $1.2 billion in an ICO. You have even bigger ambitions to compete with social media giants. but I want to talk about like the kind of the recent period because, you know, it's like not only have you had this wild ride the last couple years, but it's like been sort of condensed this summer, I would say, with multiple ups and downs. You know, obviously this ICO sold out quickly. At the same time, the platform was like losing market share and then got overtaken by by Let's Bonk. Then the token kind of dropped precipitously, but then recently Pump has now flipped Let's Bonk again to re regain the majority of market share. Now more than 80% of coins on Slana are being minted on Pump Fun again. And it feels like you're kind of on this upward trajectory. You've made a bunch of new announcements. So I was just curious like how are you feeling at this moment in time? Like what are your general thoughts on everything that's happened?

Noah Tweedale: I mean that's it's a that's a cool question because I think like I mean obviously the past sort of couple months were sort of pretty crazy I guess from the outside perspective but I mean this company now I mean has been alive or existed since even before sort of 2023 right so we've had a humongous amount of sort of ups and downs like really sort of like all the way down like this is completely over like this company is going to shut down to sort of this is going to this is doing sort of super well and and this continue sort of pushing it out so I think it was from the outside I know it sounds seems sort very extreme but sort of internally it was like I want to say like too cliche it's just like a normal day but it almost was it was just like yeah this is just like the next sort of chaotic thing which is sort of hitting us but I mean that itself was like it was a pretty unique scenario right because the whole obviously the development team which we have had to build out build out this whole sort of ICO platform for the for sort of pump fund and that took a lot of time right and I mean as you can see so during the whole ICO process our sort of system was the only one sort of upheld the sort of onslaught of all of everything going on. so that that that was super busy to sort of sort of working on that. But it was uh what the point I'm trying to get at like the twoe period before this was happening was obviously extremely chaotic and sort of full-on sort of heads down to make sure there was sort of no mistakes and quite literally the the whole sort of development company was very much focused on getting getting this over the line. Right. So that's when the whole sort of dog thing sort of happened and the we were sort of very much just focused on a different thing and then once by by dog you just you mean let's monk.

Laura Shin: Uh yeah correct. Yeah. Yeah.

Noah Tweedale: And then so we're on sort of there and then obviously the sort of token launches and I mean I'll just be honest here like myself, Alan and Dylan the sort of three three founders like we hadn't had a holiday in literally like one and a half years. Like we were working sort of seven days a week. we still are, but we we we told ourselves like no matter what happens after this token launch, let's just take like a week or something off to sort of like just like relax a bit. so that's what we did and I think that's when the whole sort of like uh chaos sort of uh chaos sort of went down. but then we sort of soon as we're back in the office we were like okay let's just like execute on this plan and then sort of get over the line. So

Laura Shin: Oh okay. So during that period when people were like they raised all this money but there's no communication. You guys were actually on vacation.

Noah Tweedale: pretty much. Yeah. I mean there were obviously like there was like calls going on like oh we should do something which we were but again like we we did just want to sort of take a bit of a break cuz it like I can't explain like the sort of craziness which has sort of happened in our lives over this sort of uh past sort of two to two to three year period. So

Laura Shin: oh yeah no I'm sure I mean just looking at it from the outside it's very obvious. well let's talk about some of the recent announcements. you know, you just announced project ascend, which at least from the announcement, it seemed like there's going to be multiple parts to it. But, the overall goal is to make projects and their communities more aligned. but let's talk about the dynamic fee model, which was, I think, you know, the main one of the main pieces of that. so you just out, you know, launched this dynamic fees V1. and it's this tiered creator fee structure on pump swap. you know where the the tiers are by mic market cap and the higher market cap coins have this lower creator fee. So like describe a little bit more like the problems that you're seeing that you were trying to solve with this new structure.

Noah Tweedale: Yeah. So I mean I think this sort of goes down as sort of a deeper a deeper question which which which I want to answer is like Pump Fund is we don't want I mean okay look it's obviously a crypto company right now but our long-term ambitions for this company is we don't want to we don't want to be a crypto company and I think we sort of made that clear in our sort of uh sort of announcement I mean we do obviously want to case towards the sort of crypton native users and sort of continue growing that out and everything but we want to become a company which has an impact globally right either through be that sort of through financial means or through sort of social means which is really what we're sort of working on. And if you look at the sort of leading social media platforms of today like Instagram, Twitter, I mean Twitch, I guess you could argue or say is like a a social platform. Tik Tok, all that sort of stuff is these all all these sort of platforms work for sort of one main reason and that's they that's because they reward the creators, right? And and they reward the creators to continue to sort of produce uh content just like YouTube as well. And our thesis was always to to like to to win this game or to win like globally with the with the best possible product, you have to build a product which is not just like 2x better, 3x better, but like 100x better. And that that was the idea with these with these sort of creator fees that we would heavily heavily incentivize sort of content creators on the platform to one just start creating content in general and then two be rewarded for it a lot more a lot more than anywhere else. And I think it's it's been really really interesting to see like just the statistics I've been sort of looking at over the past couple days like streaming has sort of gone through the roof like like DMs which is obviously prevalent on the mobile app also sort of just like going up in like a sort of a direct direct line upwards. I think it it it sort of speaks for like again like if you actually go on Pump Fun right now and you look at some of these streamers like I was looking at past couple days like people who've been streaming for like 12 minutes and have made like $150 $50, right? which like that isn't that much, but if you think about it, like this is with like 10 viewers, 15 viewers, and this money is just sort of flowing in, and this is like I believe like quite literally like a 100x better product than than what's sort of out there in the sort of traditional uh sort of world, if that makes sense.

Laura Shin: Yeah. I mean, like, so I don't know what those, you know, particular streamers were streaming about, but like most entry-level jobs are not going to pay you $150 for 12 minutes of work. So and again these are just like streams of just like even just talking nothing like too crazy and I thought it was it was it was really cool to see and especially when like the it takes time to create like quality content created like the content creators like Mr. Beast and and all these sort of famous people like they they need like time to nourish and obviously start making money to be able to reinvest into their businesses. And I think as time goes on I think hopefully we'll see larger and larger content creators having more and more of like a an impact basically.

Noah Tweedale: Yeah. So basically it's like you're trying to give enough of a financial incentive that like people who are unknown have a chance to like keep going to try to break through. it's it's so it's not only that right because if if you if you become an Instagram content creator now like how many how many users does Instagram have like like billions, right? So even if you get like 10,000 followers on Instagram, it's like you make no money. like it's it's super super hard to make money or to like or be able to generate any revenue. So, one, we obviously want to want to allow our content creators to be able to get increased sort of uh cash so they can sustain themselves and create bigger sort of brands. But two, and almost more importantly, what I think is so special about Pump and what I really love about it is is that the discoverability is that is is that much better as well because there's sort of net less streamers. It's actually way more likely to be sort of seen because you're sort of cramming these like whatever like 300 400 500 concurrent streamers to the sort of crypto audience which is sort of 5 million. So the sort of chance to fame or chance of success is a lot higher than on all these other platforms. And obviously as a platform grows and network effects get bigger then this this becomes more and more difficult to uh to attain. But I almost think like right now it's like it's like the golden age to be able to sort of create something and then and then sort of get it's kind of like like Instagram at the start when everyone was sort of loving it and people were be able to make a bunch of money or the way sort of Tinder was said like oh the start when Tinder used everyone was able to sort of get matches right but now it's turned into this sort of hyper capitalistic sort of way of just like getting you to spend money on sort of inapp purchases instead of creating like something which actually works right so yeah

Laura Shin: well so I was curious then yeah because like when I go on the front page page like I am I'm honestly and granted I know I'm not your target audience but like I was just wonder like yeah this discoverability notion or like how your algorithm works or whatever like when I go on there I'm just looking at all these things and like some of the streams I went in it's literally like a guy on a call like selling something and so I'm like wait like why would I be be watching this or like how are you choosing what goes up there are like yeah just talk a little bit about like how you think people can get discovered and yeah

Noah Tweedale: yeah so I mean with a live so the the main sort of discovery algorithm is probably on the front page for the coin like for the discovery uh algorithm for the for the live streams is actually non-existent right now. It's purely sorted by market cap. So there hasn't been much resources sort of sort of diverted into that. if if that makes sense. But again like our thesis is and I think this is sort of followed is the better your stream is, the more attention it gets. The more attention your stream gets, the more the higher the market cap is. And I think that's how that's how kind of like crypto works in general, right? And I think that's this is sort of going to continue continue over of how of this whole this whole new sort of social financial layer is going to work out.

Laura Shin: Okay. So you've also at this point done $75 million so far in buybacks. this is something that obviously the community has been excited about. you know, there is a talk it there is a fair amount of talk though about how these buybacks are discretionary so far rather than like something programmatic or like something where you know there's kind of like a like a set yeah program around it or or and literally also just not manual. so do you intend to make them programmatic?

Noah Tweedale: I mean again like this this is like a broader question. I mean, if you look at the sort of space right now, what buybacks are actually programmatic? Again, I correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'm actually not sure if the hyperlquid uh buybacks are programmatic like a lot of people like to insinuate. I'm pretty sure if those would want to be changed, they could be changed sort of very quickly. So, that's the first thing uh you need to sort of assess. I think the way we sort of make our we made our decision about the buybacks or or or pump's decision about the buybacks is we sort of looked at sort of crypto and see what what are the sort of successful uh successful successful companies out there right you have like Binance which obviously did like again I believe it was like 50% buyback so like 50% of their fees were being used to directly buy back the B&B token for the first I think believe at least a couple years of sort of development and then sort of hyperlquid which sort of executed directly 100% of the way these 100% buybacks which which I think kind of makes sense. but again like I think like yeah the like the way I like to see it is we see what has worked and we think that makes a lot of sense. but I can only comment about the past which is we've done I mean the start obviously the buyback started with 25% and then the decision was made to sort of change that to 100% buybacks and I think pump looks up to the sort of big biggest companies in crypto and and wants to follow their lead. So,

Laura Shin: and I'm sorry, when you say 100%, you're talking about of the revenue or of the revenue. Correct. Of the revenue.

Noah Tweedale: Okay. Yeah. And like this is like a really funny thing to me because you know just if you think about it, you raised all this money and when you did that you sold people this token. so like they basically paid you money for the token but then now you are using money to then buy this thing that you sold back to them. but I guess it's I mean it's just like maybe just it's the fact that this happened like in such a short period. So it's just like a funny again addressing this as a whole. I think it's like like arguably like it's a it's like it's not a wise business decision to do to buy to do buybacks either for for uh for pump fund for hyperlquid for Binance or any other centralized exchange. Like this is like a very flawed ideology which somehow crypto has sort of sort of sort of pushed pushed towards the front like this. Imagine this would be like Amazon paying a sort of 20% dividend or like a 100% dividend yield with all revenue generated since their inception, right? There's no way these these companies will be able to hit the sort of global scale by sort of giving this much back to to sort of to to I guess all the all the shareholders of it. thought that like the the current sort of crypto stuff looks like that especially the pump fund token but I mean again I think it's just like it's seeing what works in crypto and people I think the the truth is there's like a lot of sort of misconceptions or or problems which come around from sort of the equity and sort of token split and and and how these companies are sort of set up. So it's important to yeah like show belief and and and show and and like demonstrate that if people that the people buying into stuff is that there is potential value there or that there is at least there is a possibility for buybacks which happened in the past.

Laura Shin: Okay. Yeah. So you feel like it's like a particular problem in crypto. maybe doesn't you know super make sense but it does I guess in terms of like community alignment but I do understand like it creates I mean think about it for for every every dollar which is spent on a buyback. Obviously it does it does make sense depending on which what kind of stakeholder you are. But this this that money could be be used on marketing. It could be used on acquisitions. It could be used on hiring. it could be used on or bonuses or all kinds of different things which would arguably allow the company to grow sort of grow grow longer and larger in the in the sort of long term. But then looking at it in sort of more more detail again I think obviously we're pump fund is in quite a unique situation where it already has uh quite a large amount of capital so that's very much up to them how they sort of allocate the their sort of resources so yeah

Noah Tweedale: yeah I mean yeah cuz like another issue would be just like from a diversification perspective it's sort of like FTT FTX but I understand like there there is a certain crypto thing of like everybody being aligned on the same page so I understand how it feeds that narrative. let's talk about the Let's Bonk situation a little bit more. Like why do you think it is that Let's Bonk was able to take so much of Pump Fund's thunder for a few months?

Laura Shin: Again, like again this like this whole dog thing like it's happened like so many times before, right? If you look throughout Pump Pump Fund's history, you've had stuff like I mean at the very start you had Dex Screener launching a Pump Fund competitor. Then you had Justin Sun launching a Pump Fund competitor. Then you had uh I'm just sort of thinking about all these different attempts which have sort of been made. And you I mean Jupiter's obviously done one now. Then then the the dog guys have done one. Then uh I mean again this is like and of course CZ as well they they tried on sort of the B&B chain with with with their sort of one and they've done all these sort of large and the same the same thing always happens right like these these competitors come up they uh use massive amount of incentives to make their users make more money simply because they're buying these tokens. bunch of obviously traders who are very accustomed to the sort of financial markets go over because they know they can make more money and then it it sort of go goes like the market share goes directly back down again as soon as the incentives run out which they always do and again like that's why I think it's it speaks about pump like we're we're not like a partnerships driven company or we're not like a company which is driven by just like trying to quite literally like manipulate the market in this sense or acting in like a really bad faith which can come at the cost of the end users as well. We're here to it's a product first company, right? Because at the end of the day, the product always wins, right? Like if if you have like I mean if you look at I mean again this is like a kind of very simplistic way of looking at it but just looking at the UI on pump or just like the features like the live streaming or the mobile app with the with the DMs with the uh with the move tab with all this different stuff which not a single other sort of product has. This doesn't seem like a lot because it's not like oh wow like it's a onetop one so everyone uses this one thing but it's more like if if there's like a 1% edge from coming from all these different little little causes this sort of stacks up right and this this leads the product to be to be better in the end getting the user over in the long term so with this sort of stuff and competitors in general I always refer back to the product and the best product always wins and this isn't in crypto like this is a this is world w worldwide right your product has to be substantially better to win and the everyday like we're at Devco here like we're thinking of like how do we sort of structure this in a way which is the best possible product for the for the end user in every single way and all this sort of other stuff is just is just sort of noise to us and even like uh obviously we did lose some market share like obviously we'll be like oh yeah but we realize like this isn't this isn't the end game it's like we've just had this happen like literally 10 plus times at this point so let's just go back at it and build a better product right and that's that's the only thing which matters and again I think honestly it was as mentioned before it was just like a lack of focus in that in that short time period because just because like high stress environment of the of the token launch.

Noah Tweedale: Yeah. I mean like it sort of feels like it might have been more visible in a way because you had launched the token at that time as well. So it's just like so much attention on you guys like even more than normal. and then like a market price. So but I did you know want to ask cuz I'm also noticing like I think Zora now is having like there there's more like coin creation on base than Salana recently. and I wondered, do you think of them as a competitor?

Laura Shin: again, no. No, not really. I mean, I think, look, I think I like the Zoro team. I think they've actually created something pretty cool just because of like the sort of overarching narrative, which which I think like or not even narrative, like for me, what I want to what I want to do here is create a company which can work out solid crypto. And if you look at Zora and you open their mobile app, you you see something quite special, right? Because they're not catering towards the sort of the sort of average crypto user of charts and all this stuff. they're building something for for for the instant creative like the normie for the normie sort of generation or the normal normie user base which actually use it. So I think that that's quite cool. I'm not sure about that strategy. I mean again like obviously they they they don't make too much revenue uh compared to us, right? So I think that that that does speak for it about I think everyone here is going to take a different path, right? And I think it's it's just about sort of having conviction in your path and s sort of following through on it. Like I think our our our sort of vision or the way we execute this is you focus very much on the user. you you're you're user obsessed, right? You really understand everything what the user wants. Like you speak to users every day. You you you like you dig out and like what are your problems? Like what what do you want? Like why you understanding this? And I think it's risky and we've made this mistake before is if you try and build like five five years ahead for what the hu is going to look like in five years. You almost forget about your current user and that can cause like the whole thing to sort of uh almost collapse or or just not work at all and just lose. Right? So the trick here is like about user obsession but about user users which are currently using the platform and not ones which are going to be using it in in a couple years time.

Noah Tweedale: So even faster than let's bunk flipped pump fund recently took the top spot again nearly overnight. this happened in August and I wondered you know how did you guys manage to win back that market share?

Laura Shin: Yeah. So honestly like I like I don't really want to like I this is for me this this isn't like a relevant this isn't like a top of- mind issue for me right now. like I don't I don't see this as being like something one I should like we should spend time discussing or we should sort of just like address as a whole. I think like if you're worried about this, if you if you're listening to this and you're you're worried about sort of pump fun's market share, one I would just ask look at the past, look what's happened in the history and then just believe in the team's execution ability to sort of retake that. What I want to focus on is like not like oh h how does one market share take the other market share who who's got this sort of dominant space. It's more so how does this company move already in like this in this sort of niche industry we are and h and how do we sort of leave that right and I think that's like the overarching question because all this sort of like market share debates and oh I can get my revenue up to like $3 million a day $5 million a day like that for me that's not a success like that's that's not that's not what that's not what we're here for and I don't think that's what anyone working at the sort of pun development co co is either like we everyone here like working with us we want to create a company which which which can have like a which can have an impact which hasn't been seen before in crypto, right? And I think if you look at these companies, even at the largest ones like sort of Coinbase and sort of Binance and obviously sort of OKX and all these centralized exchanges and then the largest decentralized exchanges, for me, these companies are all failures. Like I don't think a single one of them really really really has has like an impact globally which which makes a difference, right? Like you look at this, you look at sort of uh Coinbase for example, like they built a Bitcoin wallet. That's that's all they did. Like the product hasn't really changed since since sort of day one. And I think when looking at like a success case, you should be looking at companies which which really truly like generationally change the world. You look at like Apple, you look at sort of obviously different social media stuff which like every single person is using like hours upon hours a day or you with your maybe your laptop which you're using now watching this podcast on or your iPhone you're watching this podcast on. you want to look at companies like that and I and I just really want to stay away from this whole sort of crypto stuff because like again it's nice to look into it and it obviously sort of helps with like moving the needle on small small numbers but like we're super young like I'm I'm 21 years old and and my co-founders also 21 and so 22 23 and I think like we want to be working on this for like decades to come and and really and really have have like an impact. So our thought process has been since the start of like we didn't even set out to like create this to be uh found like a crypto native company. It was more so like how do we just create a company which which has like a global impact and that's really what I what I what I want to stress on and not like oh are we going to build another decentralized perpetual futures exchange are we going to build like another uh stable coin and all this other stuff which I obviously we're going to do right because it's like why would you not do this if you have a good product but the question should be how can you like change the world and I think that's really what we're what we're focused on so yeah

Noah Tweedale: well you know I so actually when I asked that question I was sort of thinking like so clear so so clearly you guys are working on two different time scales here you have, you know, kind of your vision for the future. You have like, you know, your goal to take on Twitch and Tik Tok and YouTube, like, you know, what you said before in your announcement. And yet at the same time, you just said like you're also, you know, wanting to make sure that you're in touch with the your users today, of course. So, like really, so really when I asked that question, it was more like about that like about because you are kind of managing like two different things. you're managing your current audience or your current user and you want to you know keep them and and like you know grow with them. So, so I don't know like you know I did notice to give some more background like the the company is very much sort of like I want to say split apart but there is like two two sort of verticals it's one is like the this is like the future facing stuff like what what is going to lead this this market to like how do we grow this market and how do we how do we turn this into something special and that's like stuff like obviously the live streaming like obviously the sort of the DM stuff which is that built directly into the mobile app which sort of like no one has sort of really done in crypto except maybe telegram before and then you have stuff like the the mobile app in general which I'm I think is quite amazing, right? Because with with a mobile app, you get like this this K factor which is substantially higher than than than anything else, right? Like if if if you're just like I don't know just like hanging around with friends or like you're on the subway or whatever and you you you you have your sort of mobile app and you're using something like if you think about the best products in history like sort of Netflix and like uh Amazon like all this sort of stuff all this sort of stuff like you didn't hear about it because of marketing you hear it because your like your mom told you, your brother told you, your friends told you, right? And I think that's that's really what we're sort of optimizing for here is like and the focus of that side of the company essentially is like how do you make a product as viral as possible and as sort of easy to spread by spread by word of mouth and you obviously have the other side of things of sort of retain retain the current user base and sort of sort of looking after them and executing on them. But again like that that I think like I don't want to say it's easy because obviously there there are some challenges which sort of come with that. But like I mean we we've done it in in in the past over the past year and a half and I have like 100% conviction we're going to be able to continue doing this. Like for me for me that isn't like the challenge for me that that I think it's a challenge but it's not an interesting one. And I think the the real challenge should be like again how how do you grow this market out to to serious size?

Laura Shin: And out of curiosity, because this question has come up before, like in the world of NFTTS in particular, like do you prioritize one of these demographics over the other? Like do you prioritize creators or do you prioritize traders or Yeah. Like how do you segment your user base? And who do you think there's there's no such thing as like prioritization? I mean I look at it like I mean you could if you look at like current social social media platforms it's like oh do you like does like uh Tik Tok prioritize the sort of content creators or the sort of consumers and I think the honest answer is it's like it's not very clear and what kind of combines them together is the algorithm that that's that that's that's a beautiful thing right the algorithm sort of mushers both the the sort of uh the consumer and the sort of content creator and sort of creates this sort of market which which which intertwines both of them so I think it's like and and this is like this is like the most difficult question of them right? Like how do you how do you create this sort of two-sided marketplace of the sort of crypton natives and then the sort of forward-looking like mixture between sort of Robin Hood, Twitch and and Tik Tok and sort of pump fun as it is today. And I think it's like this is not a problem which you can solve of sort of one button. This is a this is a problem you solve by taking sort of rapid small iterative changes which like over time make the product like 1% better every day.

Noah Tweedale: Okay. So in a moment we'll talk a little bit more about Pump Fund's future plans, but first a quick word from the sponsors who make the show possible. Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Tom Lee, Vlad Tennvivv, Paulo Ardoino, Balji Vasan, Arthur Hayes. These are just some of the headliners at Token 2049 Singapore, the largest crypto event in the world happening October 1st and 2nd. Over 25,000 attendees, 500 exhibitors, and 300 speakers will converge for an unmissable week. Token 2049 will take over all five floors of Marina Bay Sands, transforming it into a pop-up city with 1,000 side events, non-stop networking, and immersive experiences, all leading into the Formula 1 Grand Prix weekend. Ticket prices are rising this week. Visit asia.token20249.com and use code unchained for 15% off tickets. Back to my conversation with Noah. So, I actually wanted to return back to this project to send bit because I know you just announced that little, you know, piece of it, but I was curious like what do you feel are kind of the major issues, you know, that Pump Fund has now that you would like to you know, uh tweak and improve on?

Noah Tweedale: Sweet any major issues? I would say discoverability like finding finding the uh the best possible coins and always sort of being able to sort of navigate the site either on your sort of mobile app which you're using or on the sort of website. Uh for me that's that's sort of super important. I feel like that's that's like a big thing. And then what else? I mean obviously like the uh I mean no I think that's kind of like a feature of the product, right? I mean like I presume like this is going to lead into something. So so what what do you want to sort of hear?

Laura Shin: No, no, no. I am curious to hear like what what do you I mean I do have a bunch of things that people have mentioned, but I wondered how you think about it.

Noah Tweedale: for sure. I mean, I think that the the the big thing like it's like it you have to sort of split the sort of what does a user want and then the what does a business slash the overarching company wants and I think at the end of the day like it's important to know that these are the same things right like the these connect like if you look after your customer the uh the sort of the company performance well right like even if the even if the business is operating at a loss or or or just like sort of stagnant isn't really moving if your customers are happy you will you'll sort of win in the in the end game like the customer is always the most important thing. So I mean when we again like we speak to users everyone in the team and like the founders we speak to users a lot. So whenever we hear when when we sort of listen to users like we hear their problems and those are the sort of first things we we sort of want to fix. So yeah if you have anything specific then more than happy to address that here.

Laura Shin: Yeah. I mean like I feel like the community takeover bit was like kind of a first step and then now you know the way that you changed the fee structure like is like basically what you it seems to me like what you were trying to incentivize is that you want people to not just do like the rugpool is just like you know a get-rich quick scheme but like to actually create something that's more long-lasting and that also has like a big community around it. Is that kind of a way to think about it?

Noah Tweedale: I mean of course. Yeah. Of course. Like you you want coins to to perform extraordinarily well, right? that's like that's like the best possible case for everyone, right? Like the obviously the platform does well and then the the users who who bought into these coins obviously sort of uh benefit and it becomes like a like a global success. So obviously we had like a bunch of these different coins which sort of performed very well during sort of different uh like large sort of world events basically, right? And I think that that that sort of shows the sort of merit of like these large communities getting together and these coins quite literally having like an impact on the in sort of general. So, I mean obviously the larger coin, the larger the coins, the better the coins do, the the cooler it is. And then the CTO thing, I mean, the idea here really was was just to give optionality, right? Like if a if a developer leaves his coin and no longer works on it, like and and a whole new community is coming in and really trying to support it and work on it, then we want to give them the tools to be able to sort of sort of like guess take over that coin. But the truth is like here as well, it's like this is not this is by no means a solved problem. And for all the users listening to this, like we're working on this and again just like every other like angle of the product like this is just like iterative improvement and it's like this we like obviously listen to suggestions and sort of try and try try and like gorge it out and see what makes sense to sort of either make it and try and make it a better better product in the end of it.

Laura Shin: So another you know kind of analysis that I've seen is that one of the issues that pump fund should probably try to solve for is that you know a certain portion of token discovery or like a meaningful portion is happening you know with bots or on you know wallet token feeds or dex screener like basically not on pump funds you know homepage or in its app and I wondered you know what you were trying to do to bring more attention to pump fun itself.

Noah Tweedale: I mean again I think it's like there's obviously some portion which is happening uh off the sort of front end but I think that's like that's almost beautiful in itself right like I and that's like a really cool thing about pump because if you look at stuff like these other sort of enclosed ecosystems of sort of Twitter and like uh I mean yeah again like like Instagram, Snapchat, all that sort of stuff is like you can't really see it on sort of multiple different different sort of plan plans angles on different sort of things. So pump is obviously one like a you use it you can trade on it on its front end and sort of consume it it consume its content and again there's obviously significant usage on the mobile app and the and the sort of on the sort of front end and such and so forth but I think it's also infrastructure right and I think I think that's really beautiful about it as well like you have like like Mexi who who who who pump worked with which allows like pump fund coins to be sort of traded in directly or like all these trading terminals and all these centralized exchanges which I know are coming out with like these new terminals like it becomes infrastructure and the nice thing about this is kind of like hyperl liquid, right? Every time a uh a new sort of platform is is built on top of it, it adds to the network effects, right? Because if someone launches a coin on pump, then it's seen on all these all these different venues simultaneously. And I think that's almost the beauty of crypto as a whole is everything is so interoperable and sort of built built built on one another. It's no longer this sort of siloed off ecosystem of sort of web two, which I think comes with it sort of blessings and and a lot of curses. But I think in our case, I think it's it's almost like a feature not bug.

Laura Shin: I also saw so back in July, Coinbase director Connor Grogan tweeted, quote, "The great majority of tokens launched in Pump Fun and Let's Bonk are today run by bots. The top accounts launch on average a new token every 3 minutes." you know, when I was reading that, I was just thinking like this reminds me of how on crypto Twitter now there's like so many bots that are just adding like

Noah Tweedale: I mean, it's natural, right? as as soon as as soon as there's a there's a group of sort of I mean individuals or or real human beings who are sort of working together or or or using a product like bots come along. I think the the real thing and I I've said said this before I believe even publicly the one thing you want to focus is like obviously if people like buying into bots and they and they get like hurt that's not the same as like if you buy like if you're on Twitter and you're sort of seeing bots which are sort of spreading misinformation it's obviously like a very very bad thing you want to avoid. But the trick here is not to sort of go into this sort of fight with the bots because you'll never win that. Like not even like uh not all these are large tech companies with like hundreds of thousands of employees can fix this problem. So that what you really need to lean into is you need to give the tools to your users to identify is this a bot or is this not a bot and and and and that that that's the real trick. So it's about sort of tooling and discoverability which kind of leans back into the sort of algorithm which can allow this to sort of grow out, right? So I think that's the thing you got to prioritize and and really looking after the users.

Laura Shin: Okay. Okay. So you don't you don't feel like that's something that is necessary

Noah Tweedale: again like all content is good content to to the extent where it doesn't hurt or or damage damage sort of users right like the the truth is like the the the even a bot can create something funny or or individualistic or or something which uh which can go viral right like a lot of memes are like at this point like I mean half the world is AI generated right so I think and this is only going to continue as time goes on so it's not something you can just like stop with a sort of snap of your fingers you really have to think about this on like take a step back like how how do you solve this problem? And if the if the user who's trading who who doesn't want to trade bot uh bot botcoins then you got to help them not trade bot coins, right? Then then their algorithm has to give them suggestions in a way where they they they don't trade they don't trade bot coins any longer. So that's what we're really sort of sort of focusing on because again like trying to like individually sort of ban these bot coins or or sort of stop them from getting distribution, it's really hard to do because obviously there's with a product like ours there's sort of there is money on the line, right? So if if the the other parties can take sort of actions and you sort of get into this sort of like kind of a battle with them where it doesn't really make sense. You should be building a service which can allow every single user to identify what kind of stuff they want to buy into. So yeah

Laura Shin: and you know a lot has been made about how the majority of people lose money on memecoins and on pump you know I think the recent stat I saw was about 60%. So do you feel like that's a problem you need to solve or do you just feel like that is like a function?

Noah Tweedale: Sure. I mean, we don't we don't we don't want people to lose money. I think that's like a that's like a that's like obviously like that's bad for us. If if you if you lose money, that's that's like that's not a good thing, right? That that's like we we we definitely don't want that to happen. But I mean, again, I think people also need to take this in context. Like I reckon if you take the sort of win- loss ratio of sort of pump and one place it over perpetual futures. Perpetual futures will be 100% worse. Like I guarantee that. And then two, just take the win- loss sort of percentage of just like taking it on like all like top 100 tokens and spot trading. I'm pretty sure like your odds odds odds will be worse there as well and that's like for many different reasons, right? like you have like all these like founders doing all these very weird stuff which I've sort of heard and sort of seen sort of firsthand and you have sort of all these sort of VCs who are sort of invested into as well and I think the beauty about pump and really why you sort of built this out was because we got frustrated like you you sort of like a year ago like you were buying into these coins and it was like like probably 50 people you've never even heard of or was so hidden away and so obiscated who were selling your tokens that it would like hurt you and with pump like you know what you're buying into right like you're buying into whatever whatever Xcoin And you you enjoy it and I think that or you don't enjoy it, but like you it's like it's it's not lying lying to you what it is. And I think that that's that's almost beautiful. I really enjoy that.

Laura Shin: So let's talk for a moment about the crypto competition. Again, I know we sort of addressed it, but I want to address it from a different angle, which is I just wanted to hear how you think of Pump Fund versus some of the different crypto competitors. you know, and we don't have to talk about Let's Monk if you don't want to, but you know, I mentioned Zora. You you said like they're going after normies. Like what about Believe? Like, you know, I just wanted you to hear I wanted to hear you talk about what niche Pump Fund is trying to carve out, like what the identity is that you're going after.

Noah Tweedale: I don't see these companies as as competitors. Like I they obviously like they come in like they get like a bit of a hype cycle and they they sort of go down again. like that that's a competitor is someone who'd come in and sort of maintain significant market share for sort of months or if not years on end like that that hasn't happened yet. So I really don't consider it like our competition I see as like the largest companies companies in crypto and beyond. Like I think it's like that that's who we who we're really competing against, right? Like the amount of the amount of money which which Pump is making is equatable I would say to some of the largest centralized exchanges on the planet right now, right? Like I think I believe Pump even had like a more profitable quart and Coinbase and stuff like that. And that really sort of starts like like if if you like if you start like sort of see seeing what's sort of going on and like I mean obviously Binance they're like they're like like a in a division of their own but you look look at the smaller ones like BitGet mecoin Kraken like I don't know I obviously don't know their internal financial records but I would probably bet money on the fact that Pump Fund is generating more more revenue than them right and I think that that really sort of that's pretty interesting especially when like the development company only has like 65 employees 66% depending like I think if you really to see what's going on. I think that's sort of that's sort of quite special. So like this sort of smaller stuff which like takes like a couple percent of market share or a couple decimal points of like market share every every here and now again is like not what not what you should be focusing on as like an investor and uh if if if you're looking at pump or or a user, you should be thinking of like wow how does this company go from here to like making how does pump go from making $2 million a day to $20 million a day to $50 million a day. And I think that's always like our framing of how of how the protocol's iterated. It's not like oh how do we increase our margins by like 10% or how do we increase our margins by 5%. It's like how do we create a product which can spread by itself and get to like 10x really 100x really. It's always about like how do you figure out the next 10x and not how do you just sort of try and squeeze out a bit more money from your current users.

Based on the transcript, here's the conversation formatted with speaker labels:

Laura Shin: So I also wanted to ask about your mobile app uh which you launched back in the winter. I was curious how you've seen activity there differ from on desktop and also what the breakout is in terms of percentage of activity on each.

Noah Tweedale: For sure. Yeah. So I mean the biggest thing is like retention like once you're once you're on mobile like your attention is uh substantially higher right because it's like it's like an it's like your own little enclosed ecosystem and it acts like a wallet like a a trading sort of partner and like almost like a social application as well. So that that that thing we're sort of super excited about like the the spread like the likelihood that someone shares the mobile app is also is also higher I believe. I wouldn't sort of want to uh sort of put my uh bet on like I don't want to like put my brand behind that either. I just have to double check if that's correct. But then I believe like for sort of front-end usage again I don't have the statistics in front of me but I believe it's like 25% or so actually something very substantial like a lot of our development now is going into the uh going into the mobile app because it's like we feel like desktop is kind of like a losing battle like everyone's doing desktop right like unis like all these like larger companies I mean I don't really see as like a company but like all these like larger sort of larger sort of like platforms like all these centralized exchanges like a lot of this stuff like Coinbase a lot of it is like especially when a lot of money is involved it's all on desktop and I think that's a problem because that just like inherently limits growth for the company. I think mobile really allows you to go get that sort of stratospheric upside which we're which we're really looking for.

Laura Shin: Okay. And I was curious, so the UK's financial conduct authority said Pump doesn't have permission to do business there. In general, there's, you know, some different laws around gambling, online casinos. They could potentially apply to Pump depending on the jurisdiction. And I wondered how you were thinking about that like strategically or just you know

Noah Tweedale: it's top of mind right like we have like a massive legal team I work with a bunch of different civil councils obviously our internal legal team as well and like yeah you you want to be on top of this and you want to make sure you're breaking absolutely no regulations and if there is like a like a dis you sort of fix that fix that as soon as possible and I think that's that that's really important right because like it doesn't make any sense to to run your business in a way where you get in trouble or have all these sort of run-ins because like that damages the product long term right and it damages the business long term and it and it and it hurts your reputation. So, like and I think like you mentioned the G like we're looking we're actively looking into this stuff and like whenever we see a problem like we'll change it or address it or make sure that doesn't happen again. So, yep.

Laura Shin: so, you know, on a related note, uh Twitch banned unlicensed gambling sites. and that kind of gave like an opening to a live streaming platform Kick. And that's owned by Stake, which is an online casino. And Kick is home to a number of gambling streamers and it sort of feels like you know I mean you have been bringing on other streamers from Kick actually like Soul Jake is probably the more well one of the more well-known ones and I wondered like is that a niche that you're going after? Like is that

Noah Tweedale: No, no, not at all. Like I think g like gambling and pornography is like the worst industries to be involved in. I want to be clear pump is a trading product. Like when when you when you trade on pump like it's it's a skill it's a skill-based uh it's a skill based activity. It's it's not gambling. And I think that's a that goes for like if you focus on sort of gam gambling like the the content is so boring. Like you just watch someone like spin slots. That's that's not what you want, right? You want like someone who's like doing something fun or like or like just like think of like the biggest YouTubers, right? That's kind of what the the kind of activity we're trying trying to sort of incentivize, but that does not that does not dissuade us for try different niches. Not the we haven't actually gone into the sort of online gambling one I'm certain of but stuff where it's like looking into stuff uh like I know maybe it's like sports or like gaming or so all this different stuff all these different sections because the way you see and identify if a product has PMF is simply like AB testing right you have to see which uh which vertical is working which vertical isn't working and digging into it and and understanding the sort of uh the psychology and the usage of it so it's about doing a bunch of AB testing and sort of identifying what niches work and and then sort of expanding on that. And what we believe or what we think is like we've seen has been the most successful has been like the IRL stuff and and that the streams streams have been sort of uh kicking off.

Laura Shin: Well, just you know in general as you're looking to take on some of these more mainstream social media platforms that you mentioned before you know how do you think about how to do that? Like how do you break out of crypto? you know, do you feel like this this strategy that you started where you're bringing on sort of these, you know, moderately well-known streamers is working?

Noah Tweedale: Well, no. Again, like bringing on streamers, that's not like we we've tried some of that, but again, like a lot of most I would say like 99 plus% of the streaming activity on Pump is organic, right? It's just like word of mouth and people using it and and sort of speaking to them. And then what we do do, however, is when we see someone like coming on and they're sort of using the streaming platform and they're and they're really enjoying it, we reach out to them, right? we put them in a group chat and we're like, "Hey, uh, do you wanna like do you want to go to like Africa and do you want to take some pictures of zebras or something?" Like we we'll finance that trip, right? Because we we want to have we want to have like a cool we want to have like allow us have a sort of cool experience and sort of create better content. So we don't bring over streamers, but we do sort of open up the floodgates to creating better content. And that's for anyone listening as well. Like if you're interested in streaming, like reach out like we'll speak to you. We have like a fully dedicated streaming team who will help you out and sort of uh do all this sort of stuff like and again I said this on the deli podcast uh the other day. But we I think we we spent about over over a quarter million dollars on streaming equipment. This is like uh webcams, uh like microphones which you can like walk around with and like uh cameras and all this stuff to give to these people so they can have a chance to sort of start streaming and and and get get this off the ground because the truth is like kick I think kind of has PMF but the PMF just comes from like stakes massive sort of gambling uh gambling ro like paying all these people to like uh advocate for gambling basically right that that's that's not that's not like a that's not like a long-term approach. what you what you really want to be going for is like this bottomup approach where people are using the product because they love it, right? Like the thing I'd more look at as a comparison here is like the Tik Tok streamers or like the Instagram live streamers. That's kind of more the audience we sort of want to go for because I think that that's like a a whole lot more wholesome and a lot more rewarding and also again can just grow a lot more than focusing on a bunch of people like wanting to trade stocks all day.

Laura Shin: And out of all of the different activities people do on social media, why did you decide to focus on streaming?

Noah Tweedale: honestly, user activity. So, we we we just like again like this goes back to sort of speaking to users a lot. But I mean, not many people know this, but if if you use Psometimes like a a Google Meets link will sort of pop up and be like, hey, if you join this for 1 hour, you'll get like one Salana and then users will sort of come on there and then like our engineers or or team will sort of will user interview them. And this was very early on the streaming. I mean there's obviously that whole controversy which happened but even before that we saw what we like we were like looking at what users were doing it was streaming in telegram groups there was like 15 people on telegram watching like a stream together and we thought this makes sense like why we implement it very similar decision-making process to why did we bring in the the sort of DM feature right like what does everyone in crypto do and outside of crypto they're all on telegram right they're all your like all your VC buddies are talking on telegram or your like your your trading friends are talking on telegram and if you can import something which is a lot cryptonative and create like a crypto uh like isolate isolated ecosystem and build features for crypto traders like imagine like per directly built into sort of uh sort of typing or like his stable coco payments all this sort of stuff like built into a messaging app for the user base which which is sort of currently out there. I think that's sort of super special. So it's about like looking at what the users are doing and then sort of like building a product which is better for them than what they're currently doing. That's the kind of way I like to see it.

Laura Shin: I mean basically it's like a way to kind of hang out with your friends digitally like in real time. Like you may not be physically in a room together but

Noah Tweedale: you're all doing it's the same here like I mean even those like we communicated over Telegram before this or like like every single trading group I'm in especially the younger generations I think is like everyone's sort of like perpetually online. I think that's like a that's like a really big thing. Like the other thing is like one thing I want to highlight here as well as I was mentioning this on the other podcast as well, but like the people who use pump are like the younger generations. It's always like super like the people between like 18 and sort of 24 who are using this and sort of sort of really focus on it. And I think it's like people are kind of fed up with all this sort of per stuff which is kind of like zero sand just like not very social. It's not it's quite like boring, not not very entertaining. And then you then you sort of see the stuff where it's like like when Alan said like Pump wants to build the most fun place on the internet, then like I couldn't agree more. I think I think it makes all the sense.

Laura Shin: And so when you talked about how like you also want to get into sports and gaming like are you just you know watching who naturally comes on the platform and starts using it and then like trying to pick out people who you feel like could cultivate those areas or like how

Noah Tweedale: No, it's it's not about it's not about picking them out. You do that anyways. Like anyone who's consistently streaming on pump we speak to and we we like we look after them, right? It's like the same thing which Tik Tok did as well is like not many people know this but they would have like whole cohorts like hundreds of people who they would basically like teach how to stream. They would just like give them incentives and like give them free food and all this stuff and literally like they go to like streaming boot camps and be like this is how you stream this is how you make the good content. So that that's something which is going to happen uh anyways basically. So that that's no worries. Then it's more like understanding maybe the gaming streamer prefers like a subscription based model or maybe the gaming streamer wants emote reactions or maybe the gaming streamer wants to be able to sort of stream with multiple people at the same time. It's like speaking to these people and understanding what they want and then and then and then building that out and and it's not it's not so easy doing that either, right? Because you can't just go to people and be like ask like hey like what do you want, right? Like you need to go to them and like like build a relationship with them and sort of speaking to them and sort of slowly understand what they want, not just ask them what they want if that makes sense.

Laura Shin: Okay. so I did also just want to ask like some philosophical questions because you know I'm watching all this stuff happening and it just seems so interesting like you know if you kind of think about almost like the history of the internet, right? It's like you know Chris Dixon has this thing that like it starts with reading then writing then owning you know for every version of the internet up through web three. And you know, I was just curious like what do you think pump represents culturally? Like you're clearly enabling new behaviors, new types of activity. but like what is that? You know, how do you think about like where you fit in the evolution of the history of the world or the internet?

Noah Tweedale: I think it's like what the young people are doing that's like that's like I think right now the world and I I've seen it sort of firsthand is like in a really dark place, right? Like the the rich people are just getting even even richer and like the poor people are getting even poorer, right? It's like like the wealth gap is just increasing more and more and more and it's basically it's like it's almost impossible to escape out of like that uh this sort of system because it's like so entrenched and so and there's all this like and like it's really dystopian like like you look at stuff like Tik Tok and Instagram reels and people just like like on this like 10 hours a day, right? And it's like this stuff is like don't forget like when you buy like an iPhone like the first reason like the main reason the only reason you're buying an iPhone is so that you like spend money on that iPhone. Like that's the only reason like an iPhone even exists, right? And I think then it sort of goes in like you open the Instagram app and the only reason the Instagram app is so that you consume more content so you watch more ads. And I think this this creates like a really like skewed sort of like a skew a skewed world which like yeah just like kind of like brainwashes a lot of people and causing causes a lot of harm. So I think it's like one it kind of pumps and really highlights the fact that people want to escape this. They want to get out and and it really gives them the optionality to do so. And and it it might sound a bit crazy that this is sort of what memecoins are and what what what the what what like what it has become now, but if if you look at this and you and you speak to like I know like your interns or or like your daughters, like sons, all all this sort of stuff like what do you do? And I think if they're like if they're somewhat sort of financially savvy or somewhat in cryptoreated or or even in general like I had friends like I hadn't spoken to in years were reaching out to me like wait, you're the founder of Pump Fund. These people like they had no idea what crypto was, right? And I think that really speaks for it. And then there's obviously like the the Black Mirror episode as well. And I think it it really shows that it's like the youth wants to like one create their own financial system and two kind of escape the sort of like a bit like the matrix basically just like being being stuck in it and just not being able to escape. And I think it's like a I think people say like the internet has like increased access for people and and allowed people to sort of live live a better life and get more information. I think it's kind of true, but I also think it's like kind of not true. Like it's it's also like it's really dark like at least like back in the day you like go outside or something but now like it's just like Instagram Tik Tok like you just you just can't leave and I think it's like it's pretty messed up. So really the the the hope here is for Pump and and what what we want to help them do is is create something where they uh one you can obviously consume content because people do enjoy that but you can financially benefit from doing so anyways because if you're spending like hours upon hours upon hours of sort of uh really really consuming this content are at least like you to be able to sort of invest into that and sort of create a whole new market. Again, I said this the other day as well, but like I really believe that every generation creates a whole new financial system. Like it really sort of it's it sort of goes down in sort of layers, right? There's like the there's like the the boomers who create like the banks and there's like the sort of Silicon Valley people and now it's like the crypto people. Like it's always like the like history always like like rhymes but never repeats, right? And I think it it sort of speaks to it. Now, like the reason I like crypto and I think where this is like the next big company's going to is going to come from is because this is where all the young people are like all all the really young smart talented people are all are all building in crypto and I think that that sort of should highlight its long-term success and and nothing else.

Laura Shin: I was also curious like do you feel like you're learning things about human behavior from watching how people use pump? like do you feel like you're like seeing new behaviors or like you're seeing yeah culture or society evolve? Like I'm curious. Yeah. Just what you feel like you're learning from.

Noah Tweedale: I mean I think like culture and society sort of like again it just like it repeats itself in different ways, right? I think it's like impossible to like evolve evol like I think like the human nature is the same has always been that for the way for the past like 3,000 years. So I think it's very hard to sort of engineer something which will create like a whole new uh type of acting. I think you can like take different ways of acting and sort of put it together. And could you argue that's like a different one? I don't know. Maybe. But like all I know is when when I first sort of start even now like streaming and all this sort of social way of like uh spreading the information of these coins is when you when you watch these people like like a chart plus a stream like for me that is like a whole new whole new form of content. And I think that was kind of the very special thing I saw.

Laura Shin: So, I did want to ask because as I'm sure you're very well aware, a lot of people criticize Pump Fun and like similar platforms saying it's gambling or it's the memecoin casino. And I wondered what your response is to those critics.

Noah Tweedale: I know. Just like have a higher IQ, I guess.

Laura Shin: Wait, I'm sorry. Say that again.

Noah Tweedale: I said like have a higher IQ. Like look at what look what's actually going on, understand it, like read into it, and maybe like use the product and and really understand what's happening. And I think like a lot of people they're just like bad. And I think a lot of this is this comes from like the the old people, right? The people who like made their money on like Polka Dot or made their money on like Ethereor made their money on Bitcoin. They just like and that's what I don't like about crypto either. It's like super tribalized and people just like they understand that like Polka Dot was just a meme coin which got launched like 5 years ago. It's it's the same thing. It's literally the same thing. I think it's just like oh my god all this sort of bad stuff. I'd say like you you have to understand what's going on here, right? like this is like some of the like I would say like the for our age like we're probably the some of the most successful like we probably are the most successful entrepreneurs of anyone under sort of the age of 24 founding this sort of platform and I think if that doesn't make your sort of eyes open up then then I don't know what can really help you.

Laura Shin: And I was curious for you personally like do you consider yourself more like a crypto person or a memecoin person or a streaming person or you know I was curious just cuz like you could you could say that Pump has kind of multiple ways that you could slice and dice it or like are you a social media person and I wondered what your personal affinity is for the various you know lenses through which you could look at Pump.

Noah Tweedale: I mean again like personal like I mean look I was in crypto for for a while before we before I sort of founded Pump. obviously I'm like again I don't think there's like one sort of necessary I think okay that's a unique thing as well. Right. So there's obviously three co-founders of sort of pump. I think everyone has their sort of unique unique ability or their unique talent or their unique niche which which they're an expertise in. I think that's why we're such a brilliant team because everyone sort of has their own angle of what what they think the world sort of looks like, right? And I think that allows us to create something which is almost like a jumble a jumble of like a bunch of different stuff which is happening simultaneously. And I don't know. I think like I'm super interested in finance. I'm interested in like sort of social dynamics and and and how that can sort of impact stuff. And then u but most of all I do just like generally enjoy enjoy it a lot like I do like creating stuff which uh which people use and then can create these sort of uh changes in the way uh people think and how they act as well.

Laura Shin: Okay. and I wondered you know like there's multiple different ways that you could go mainstream. and clearly you're trying out a number of these. you know, but as you do that, there's going to be this tension between pushing the envelope, you know, which like you kind of have to do if you're if you want to create something new and edgy, but then also, you know, like there's a certain point past which like if you go past that limit, then uh it might be, you know, somewhat damaging to your reputation or Yeah. So, you know, what have you learned from like past incidents like those streaming incidents where like people were kind of, you know, threatening violence or, you know, whatever just or or just pretty much any of the other incidents have happened because there's been a number where I know you were guys you guys were challenged. How do you think about

Noah Tweedale: Yeah. Yeah. So, I think the biggest learning from this is like back when the streaming thing sort of happened, it was like ship a product. It doesn't matter how bad it is. It doesn't how matter how like it barely works. Like just no consideration. get it out in the world and make sure people use it and just try and get see see if people use it. So, I think the biggest thing we've learned is just preparation and thinking about like the like the what's the worst case scenario. It's kind of like you need that one person in the room who's like if this goes wrong this could be something really bad, right? And then we had like obviously we shut down streaming as soon as something bad happened and then we like uh had like a whole moderation team which is sort of working on that now, right? round the clock. There's like like tens of dozens of people online to monitor if anything is sort of going on and this works sort of flawlessly so far and hopefully we'll sort of continue to catch any wrongdoings. And then you have stuff like new product releases like the DM stuff. Obviously that comes with risks, right? People could be sending inappropriate messages, inappropriate images like really like illegal and bad stuff. So moderation also has to be has to be employed on that. So, it's just like I mean it sounds kind of like classy, I guess, but just like learning from your past mistakes and then and iterating on it and learning quickly because otherwise you're not going to make it very far, I didn't think.

Laura Shin: Okay. And you know so just going back to like your big mission that you know you announced when you were doing the ICO did you do you have like kind of even if it's a vague road map of like how it is that you want to try to take on the likes of Tik Tok or

Noah Tweedale: No no no again I would I would throw this like road map fallacy uh away and I would I encourage everyone to do this as well that this this is not how this sort of stuff works. There's not like a 10-step plan of how to become the biggest company in the world. that that just doesn't exist, right? And I think again I said this previously as well, but if you look at like the best companies in the world, I mean like like WhatsApp for example, I made that example last time like it hasn't changed like the product since launch is exactly the same product. There's like very very few differences which have which allowed it to grow to a to a sort of large scale. So the way these companies grow is actually by having small just like very niche changes like I know like WhatsApp different languages or uh for example it cost money at the start they then made it free and then they did stuff where it's like okay up to a thousand people can be in a group chat these very small niches can unlock sort of next level next levels of growth. I think that's the next thing we're really trying to sort of uh sort of push out basically and there's no such thing as a road map. It's just like constant iteration and just like rapid improvement as fast as possible and again just like speaking to users understanding what the users want and then also combining that with some kind of uh forward-looking vision which I think the world is going to look like which is going to be this sort of I think the the like the bank and the the platform which which becomes like the next biggest thing will be some like this combination of what all the zoomers are using today right it's like a you have your like you chat with people there like you consume your content there and you sort of have your finances there at the same time it's like this bigger sort of uh envisioning being glossed into one larger product.

Laura Shin: Okay. So, if I were going to summarize kind of like what this might look like, you know, some number of years in the future, we we won't name how many. it's basically there's communities that are aligned around creators and whatever content creators are putting out. But, both the creators themselves and the communities can benefit financially. and whatever it is that the creators are putting out has a little bit of this you know real time component through the streaming and then on top of that there's like

Noah Tweedale: a bank like you have you have your like you have your life savings on this app as well right it's like imagine like you sort of swap between Tik Tok you swap between Robin Hood and you sort of also got your bank which you can like pay for at the grocery store all in like one mega application

Laura Shin: oh wow okay that's super interesting So it is it is like the everything app kind of.

Noah Tweedale: Yeah. Quite yeah quite quite legitimate. It's like but like if you think about the everything apps which are sort of built out today, they're sort of focused on one niche and they like they're again they're kind of like old peopleish. Like it sounds silly but like nobody really uses like Facebook anymore. Like this this stuff is like sort of like faded into a relevancy and then like our generation or even a bit above us is like this Instagram generation there and it's like the Tik Tok self which like the eight-year-olds are watching I guess. And it's like the question is like what is like the what is the thing which will hit the sort of next level of the like the 18-year-olds of the next generation basically. So yeah

Laura Shin: and then one question and maybe this is like resolved by the generational issue but because of this sort of judgment and stigma that we see around meme coins like I wondered if you guys have any thoughts or if you're like trying to strategize about how to overcome that with mainstream people.

Noah Tweedale: I mean again like we've like purposely like tried to stay away from describing ourselves as a memecoin platform because that's like although it like it is used as that like what we've built is is a tool which can be used for anything you want like if people were only uploading sort of YouTube videos or like YouTubeesque videos on pump then it will be like a it would be like a video sharing platform right so I think that's that's kind of the beauty of this it's like it's like infrastructure right it allows anyone to sort of well not infrastructure but it's like a it's like a social media platform which allows to do with what you want, right? And it's like it's super interoperable. So, I think I don't want to like sort of say pump is a memecoin thing. Pump is a uh short form video trading platform. Pump is a live stream trading platform where you pump up as a messaging app. It's whatever you want it to be. And I think that's what you see to happen to these sort of larger uh these these larger applications as well where it really creates something which is like you can use it in the way you want. Like Twitter is probably used for like thousands of different reasons. Like you probably have historians looking at it trying to understand like different opinions from uh like specialized historians like maybe it's like people who just want to like watch and scroll and watch people like sort of uh I know play music or whatever. There's like so many different reason so many different like use cases for and I think it's the same with everything and I think it's very dangerous to sort of lock yourself into one. So we just try and ignore it because I want to create something which really has which is a tool for everyone basically.

Laura Shin: Okay. and this is just like me spitballing, but I was sort of thinking like, you know, you're you have this like streaming component which is like a real-time thing. Y which is sort of like you could think of it as an event, but then, you know, we have prediction markets which, you know, they're called event contracts. And I wondered like is there a way to do like some kind of mashup there?

Noah Tweedale: No, just like again like I think everyone's on this like prediction market sort of hype train or something like the prediction markets don't work. I mean they do work but like they don't make any money. Like this is not this is not like a business. Like this doesn't really exist. Like there's not a single prediction market in the world which is pro. I mean I again I don't know too much of the details but like I think our daily volume is like sometimes in the billions and like these prediction markets have like monthly volumes of like 100 million. And I think that really just shows you where like the the interested of the users and like taking this whole thing, oh let's combine it together like like prediction markets are literally just like a glorified sort of VC narrative like that that's all they are like there there's in my experience at least until something significantly changes these are not revenue generating businesses and not businesses which have have an impact. they might get like an opinion because like a lot of people see them for a brief period of time but they're not something which people actually use and like I think they speak about it a lot like if you look at the sort of uh different CEOs and for like different different companies in the world like you'll see like like the best the best like the best products and the best companies like you don't really see the the sort of the CEOs running around preaching about the future vision right because the product is just do doing itself and you see see other people again I'm not going to name any names but if you like look into it like the more the CEO has to tell like the vision of the platform like the less it's working and I think that that sort of uh that sort of speaks about about the world in general. So I think it's like the again like the most important thing about is is building something which the users want to use.

Laura Shin: Okay. Well, last question for me and I'm only asking because I feel like people will be mad if I don't ask it is just like any any news about the airdrop that you want to talk about?

Noah Tweedale: again I would refer to like our sort of like public communication. So yeah again everything will be announced obviously it's sort of there and everything so just like look at our Twitter I promise you everything will be accurately addressed so please don't stress

Laura Shin: okay well you know you said that you wanted to come on here and like talk about how you were going to like bring this app out of crypto into the mainstream so is there anything on that subject or any other subject that you didn't get to say that you would want to say

Noah Tweedale: I think again like I would just like like okay the biggest takeaway I would take I would take away from this is like if you look at products throughout history a a lot of them they don't start off as a things which they become right like if if you look at like sort of YouTube or or even even like Facebook and these larger companies like like even Facebook it was like hated like everyone hated Facebook they like they thought it was like a this like this ran by this like horrible guy who was like just like an evil person all this sort of stuff so it was like really really disliked and I think and again like what what Meta has become now is like probably like like you couldn't even like you could barely imagine it like a 20 years ago. So, I think it's just like the biggest thing is like look where the talent look where the talent is going, understand that this stuff like changes over time and then just like I think long-term dedication is also a really big thing which can which can have like a really big impact.

Laura Shin: Okay. All right. Well, where can people learn more about you and Pump Fun?

Noah Tweedale: I Twitter, I guess. Yeah. Just like Twitter is probably the best way to to reach out to us.

Laura Shin: Okay. Well, it's been a pleasure having you on Unchained. Thank you so much.

Noah Tweedale: Thanks so much for joining us today.

Laura Shin: To learn more about Noah and Pump Fun, check out the show notes for this episode. Unchained is produced by me, Laura Shin, with help from Matt Pil, Juanovich, Pam Jimar, and Margaret Coua. Thanks for listening.