There are two ways to bet on a memecoin. You can buy the coin itself on a launchpad like pump.fun, or you can take a perpetual position and wager on its price while someone else holds the coin. Same speculative dollar, but two very different venues, and a growing share of that dollar now goes to the perpetual side. The clearest single sign is that over the 30 days to September 8, 2026, one perpetual venue took more in fees than pump.fun's entire launchpad. The shift shows up most clearly in the fees each side collects.
Two venues for the same bet
A launchpad sells you the coin: you buy a token near its launch and you own it, for better or worse. A perpetual sells you exposure instead of a coin. It is a contract that tracks the price, and you can go long or short with leverage. Pump.fun built the launchpad side into the biggest memecoin machine on Solana, and by August 2025 it had generated more than $800 million in lifetime revenue (source: Cointelegraph). Owning a coin and betting on its price are close substitutes, and when a trader wants memecoin exposure today, the perpetual is often the tool they reach for, a shift you can trace through what the PUMP token itself does.
What the fees say
Fees are the cleanest public measure, because every trade pays them and public trackers record them. Over the 30 days to September 8, 2026, Hyperliquid, the largest on-chain perpetual venue, earned about $69.7 million in fees (source: DefiLlama). Pump.fun's launchpad earned about $46.5 million over the same window (source: DefiLlama). One perpetual venue out-earned the launchpad that defines the whole category. Both numbers move daily, so the exact gap shifts from day to day. The direction has held: the trade on the price now pays more than the mint of the coin.
Why the whole category is a slippery comparison
It is tempting to say perps out-earn launchpads as whole categories, but the public data tells a messier story. Over the same 30 days, the on-chain launchpad category took about $179 million in fees, against roughly $116 million for on-chain perpetual venues (source: DefiLlama). Two things distort that comparison, starting with the launchpad total, which is lifted by a new Robinhood Chain entrant that overtook pump.fun only weeks ago and may fade, the kind of churn covered in launchpad competition beyond Solana. The perpetual figure counts on-chain venues alone, and the big centralized exchanges, where most perpetual trading actually happens, sit outside these trackers entirely. So the true perpetual category runs far larger than the number shows, and free data puts any clean category comparison out of reach.
The coin itself became a perpetual
The sharpest example is pump.fun's own token, which does more than sit in wallets: it trades as a perpetual across most major venues, on Binance, OKX, and others (source: CoinMarketCap). It also trades that way far more than it trades as spot. On September 8, 2026, PUMP saw about $742 million in perpetual volume against about $100 million in spot (source: Coinglass). The token a launchpad platform issued is now mostly traded as a derivative, and on BloFin that market is the PUMPUSDT Perpetual. That is the whole substitution in miniature: even the launchpad's flagship asset gets bet on more through contracts than through ownership.
Before opening that position, it helps to know what it costs, and BloFin publishes its funding and trading rates on its fee schedule.
What this means for you
The real choice comes down to something simpler than launchpad or perp in the abstract: do you want to own a coin, or take a position on one? Owning a launchpad coin is easy to grasp, and your loss is capped at what you paid, though most of these coins fade toward zero. A perpetual adds leverage, a funding cost you pay while the position stays open, and the risk of liquidation before your view plays out. Each carries its own kind of risk, and the two fail in different ways. What the fee data shows is only this: the crowd has drifted toward the position and away from the coin. How dominant pump.fun still is on the launchpad side is covered in market share explained, and where a graduated coin actually trades is covered in pump.fun versus the Solana DEXs.
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
Are memecoin traders moving from launchpads to perps?
Some of the speculative money has clearly shifted: over the 30 days to September 8, 2026, a single perpetual venue earned more in fees than pump.fun's entire launchpad. That is a real signal, but one number alone falls short of proving a full migration, and both figures move daily.
Do perpetuals earn more than launchpads overall?
The free public data points the other way. On-chain launchpad fees actually ran ahead of on-chain perpetual fees in the 30 days to September 8, 2026. But that count leaves out the big centralized exchanges, where most perpetual trading happens, so the question stays open on public sources alone.
Does pump.fun's own token trade as a perpetual?
Yes, PUMP lists as a perpetual on most major venues, including Binance and OKX, and its perpetual volume runs far above its spot volume. On September 8, 2026, it saw about $742 million in perpetual volume against about $100 million in spot, so the token now trades mainly as a derivative.
Is this a comparison of trading volume?
The comparison here is about fees, because fees are recorded for both sides on public trackers. Total perpetual trading volume across every venue stays beyond what the free sources can pin down, so the comparison stops at fees and claims no volume total.
Which one is riskier for me?
Each carries its own kind of risk rather than more or less of the same one. A launchpad coin can simply fade to zero, though your loss is capped at what you paid. A perpetual adds leverage, an ongoing funding cost, and the chance of liquidation, so the two fail in different ways.
Researched and written by the BloFin Academy editorial team with AI-assisted drafting. Primary sources are DefiLlama, CoinMarketCap, Coinglass, and Cointelegraph. 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.