The person who created a pump.fun coin keeps a wallet, and that wallet stays active in the market. The creator can buy their own coin at launch, can sell it whenever they choose, and earns a fee on your trades either way. Every one of those moves is permitted by design, part of how the platform runs rather than a hack or an exploit. The move traders call the dev sell, where the creator dumps their tokens and the price collapses, is an allowed action baked into the system. Your one real defense is reading the creator's wallet before you buy.
How the creator wallet works at launch
A pump.fun coin has a creator wallet baked in from the first transaction. The creator can take a first buy of their own coin in the very same transaction that mints it, so the launch fills that buy before any sniper can get in ahead of it (source: Pump.fun coin-creation docs). From that moment the creator holds a block of the supply like any other holder, except they chose their own entry and paid the lowest price anyone will ever pay. That first buy is part of the launch itself, walked through in how a coin is created.
One subtlety matters when you go to check who the creator is. The creator address is a value chosen when the coin is made, recorded separately from the wallet that actually signed and paid for the transaction. The two can be different addresses. So the label reading creator is a wallet the launcher picked, and one operator can sit behind several creator wallets and many launches. Checking the creator means checking a name they selected, which is exactly why their past coins are worth looking at.
They earn on your trades, whichever way you trade
The creator collects a fee on trading in their coin, on buys and on sells alike, so activity pays them regardless of direction (source: Pump.fun fees docs). That fee runs higher on a small coin and steps down as it grows, which front-loads the reward for a fresh launch. Who earns what, and in what share, is broken down in the creator fees breakdown.
Two details sharpen the picture of who is actually on the other side of your trades. The creator fee can be split across several wallets rather than landing in one, since pump.fun lets a coin route its creator fees to a list of shareholders (source: Pump.fun creator-fee-sharing docs). And the wallet that receives those fees can be redirected after launch, now capped at one change per coin, a limit CoinMarketCap Academy documented. A single-wallet read of the insider side can therefore understate how many hands are being paid.
Those creator fees are native to pump.fun and separate from what a centralized venue charges. If you trade the PUMP token itself on an exchange, the PUMP/USDT Spot market on BloFin runs on its own published schedule. You can check what a position there costs on the BloFin fees page.
Why a dev sell still crashes the price
The step most often misread as impossible is straightforward. Once a coin graduates, its pool liquidity is locked, so the creator loses the ability to pull the pool out from under you, closing that particular kind of rug. What the locked pool still allows is the creator selling their own token position straight into it. The locked liquidity leaves room for "selling a large token position and crashing price" (source: CryptoSlate). That lock, and the graduation step behind it, is explained in how graduation works.
This is the real shape of a pump.fun coin's safety. The bonding curve and the locked pool guarantee that you can always sell something, but they say nothing about the price. The "contract guarantees you can sell, but it does not guarantee the price at which you sell will resemble the price at which you bought" (source: crypto.news). A creator who sells a large holding is exercising a normal right, and the curve will fill your exit at whatever collapsed price is left.
Reading the wallet before you buy
Because the dev sell is permitted rather than preventable, the defense lives in the homework you do before buying. Look at how much of the supply the creator's side holds and what their past launches did: a creator sitting on a large share, or one with a track record of quick sells, is the warning most people skip. Pulling apart a coin's holder table and separating insiders from a real crowd is its own task, one the holder distribution check works through. Treat the dev sell as one of the standing risks of trading on pump.fun, a normal feature of the venue you plan around.
Looking to trade PUMP? To get started, you'll need to first create a BloFin account, fund your account with cryptocurrency, and navigate to the PUMP/USDT Spot trading page or PUMPUSDT Perpetual page.
Frequently asked questions
Can a Pump.fun coin creator sell their own tokens?
Yes. The creator can buy their coin at launch and sell that position whenever they choose. Selling is a permitted action, part of the design rather than a bug or an exploit, and nothing in the rules stops a creator from exiting into the pool that other buyers are holding up.
Does locked liquidity mean a coin cannot be rugged?
No. Locking the pool at graduation stops the creator from pulling the liquidity itself, which removes one kind of rug. It does nothing to stop the creator selling their own token holding into that pool and crashing the price, which is the more common way holders get hurt.
Does the creator make money when I sell?
Yes. The creator earns a fee on trading in their coin, and that fee applies to both buys and sells alike. Selling pressure still pays the creator, so activity in either direction is income for them, and on a small or fresh coin that fee runs higher before it steps down as the coin grows.
Is the creator wallet the same as the wallet that launched the coin?
They can differ. The creator address is a field chosen when the coin is made, and it is recorded separately from the wallet that signed and paid for the creation. The two are often different addresses, and one operator can run several creator wallets across many coins.
How do I protect myself from a dev sell?
Read the wallet before you buy. Look at what fraction of the coin the creator's group controls and what their earlier launches did. A big insider holding, or a pattern of fast exits, is the signal to be careful, because the sell itself stays open to the creator once you are in.
Researched and written by the BloFin Academy editorial team with AI-assisted drafting. Primary sources are Pump.fun's published developer documentation, its fees documentation, and independent reporting from CryptoSlate and crypto.news. All facts independently verified against cited documentation current as of September 2026.
This article is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not financial, investment, or trading advice. Digital assets are volatile and many newly launched tokens lose all value. Do your own research and consider your own circumstances before trading.