Kimchi Token Plunges 98% After Pump.fun's Alon Deletes Repost

Project Kimchi's Rise and Wipeout

A token pushed through the X account of pseudonymous trader Kimchi collapsed by more than 98% on October 22, barely 48 hours after Pump.fun announced him as its new creative partner. The account posted a picture of a Manhattan sidewalk poster reading “Project Kimchi, same internet, different outcomes”, complete with a Pump.fun logo, an App Store badge and a QR code, and scanning the code opened a newly minted token on the launchpad. Co-founder Alon amplified the post to his followers, and the token's market capitalization cleared $10 million within minutes before peaking near $14 million as FOMO buying spread. On-chain investigators reported the surge minutes after the repost went live. Around half an hour later the promotion vanished: the original post was gone, Alon had pulled his own repost, and the QR code no longer resolved to the token. After $8.66 million in trading volume, the market cap stood near $284,000, a drop of more than 98% from the high, with some trackers measuring the fall closer to 99%. A market capitalization figure values a token's supply at its last traded price, so it does not mean $14 million of cash entered the market. A trader using the handle tontheneko demanded refunds on X, arguing that a Pump.fun founder carries the duty to verify what he shares before amplifying it. Trader Arez, who followed the sequence in real time, alleged the QR code's destination changed after sizeable orders had built up, leaving late buyers holding tokens bought near the peak. Early claims that Kimchi's account had been hijacked were quickly challenged by on-chain detectives, who pointed out that Alon reshared the promotion just as fast as he later removed it. Neither party has issued a statement, and Kimchi has since deleted the Pump.fun references from his profile.

@Jeremybtc · X post

Reported the surge.

View on X

Sniper Wallets and a Revenue Slide

On-chain analysis has since mapped the money around the launch. Lookonchain's trace shows the account promoted the token after receiving 500 million KIMCHI, and it flagged wallets that accumulated at low prices before selling into the rally, estimating combined profits above $385,000. Investigators published three Solana addresses so anyone can audit the transfers directly. Wallet activity alone does not establish who controlled those addresses or whether the traders had advance knowledge of the promotion. A separate Bitquery investigation documented a different KIMCHI launch around October 20, in which three linked wallets bought a freshly issued token and sold it quickly for roughly $104,000 in gains; Bitquery itself stated that direct transfers could not connect those wallets to the deployer. That finding sits alongside a broader October study from the same firm: 79% of launches in its sample recorded no trading after their first day. Kimchi's own record is under scrutiny too. His reputation rests on a claim of roughly $40 million earned trading the TRUMP token after its January 2025 launch, but Bubblemaps traced the wallets tied to him and estimated actual gains near $6 million, noting its coverage captured only part of the cluster. His earlier KIMCHI memecoin also raised questions: an anonymous deployer bought about 79% of supply for roughly $9,300 and routed every creator fee to a wallet labeled Kimchi. The episode lands as platform activity cools: daily revenue slid from $1.61 million to $1.35 million in two days, about 16%, and active addresses fell from 178,539 to 159,492, roughly 11%. Pump.fun has been pushing beyond memecoin launches, adding perpetual futures, a form of contract trading in crypto, through Hyperliquid, plus a cross-chain bridge called Pump Bridge, though neither product is tied to this incident.

COINOTAG's Read: Timing Was the Story

The sequence of events matters more than any single figure here. A partnership marketed two days earlier became the platform's most damaging promotion of the week within a single afternoon, and the unexplained deletion leaves two readings on the table: a hijacked account fooled the co-founder, or a planned launch was pulled mid-flight. On-chain evidence confirms profits were taken around the launch but not who took them, and no refund arrangement has been announced. What the record does show is how fast an endorsement from inside the platform can inflate a token to $14 million before any buyer can verify the destination, in a market where most launches are already dead within a day. Platform metrics were drifting lower before the incident, so the reputational cost lands on a shrinking base.