Answer
What is a bonding curve?
A bonding curve is a fixed formula that sets a token's price from how much of it has been bought, so a memecoin trades from the first second without anyone creating a liquidity pool — on pump.fun it starts at 30 virtual SOL against 1.073 billion virtual tokens and completes at 85.0054 SOL raised.
How the price is set
There is no order book and no market maker. The launchpad holds two pools — SOL and tokens — and a constant-product formula prices a trade from their ratio. Every buy removes tokens and adds SOL, which raises the price; every sell does the reverse.
That is why the first buy is the cheapest and why a large buy moves the price more than a small one. The curve is deterministic: the same trade at the same point always costs the same.
The numbers pump.fun uses
These are fixed in the protocol, not chosen by the creator.
- 1,000,000,000 total supply, with 793.1 million sold along the curve.
- 30 SOL and 1.073 billion tokens exist virtually to set the opening price — nobody deposited them.
- The curve completes at 85.0054 SOL of real SOL raised, about a 410.88 SOL market cap.
What happens at the end of the curve
When the curve completes, the coin graduates: the remaining tokens and the raised SOL are moved into a PumpSwap pool, the LP tokens are burned, and trading continues on a normal automated market maker. The migration costs 0.015 SOL and cannot be reversed.
If the coin never completes the curve, nothing happens — it simply trades on the curve forever, which is where most coins stay.
What the curve is bad at
A constant-product curve has no depth beyond its reserves, so size moves the price. A buy large enough to matter pays progressively more for each token, and the same trade in reverse gives progressively less back. That is not a fee and it does not appear on any statement; it is simply the price you got.
It also cuts both ways after you buy. The mechanism that made your entry cheap for the people before you makes your exit expensive for you, and the 1.25% trading fee is charged on the way out as well as the way in.
None of this is hidden, and none of it is a reason to avoid the curve — it is a reason to size a trade before signing it rather than after.
- Large buys pay a worse average price than small ones, by construction.
- Selling moves the price down against you on the way out.
- 1.25% is charged on both sides of every trade.
Related questions
Can the creator change the curve?
No. The curve parameters are set by the protocol. A creator chooses the name, ticker, image and description, and nothing about the pricing.
Does a bonding curve need liquidity?
No. That is the point of it: the curve supplies the pricing, so there is no pool to fund and no liquidity to lock before you can trade.
What is a virtual reserve?
A bookkeeping number the curve uses for pricing that was never actually deposited. It sets the opening price; the real SOL in the curve is what counts towards graduation.
Where to go next
- What happens when a coin graduates?
- How much does it cost to launch a memecoin?
- The full launch guide: costs, socials, 21-day runway
- Every question we have answered
If the brand and the page are what is stopping you
Mint a Brand draws the icon, banner and stickers, builds the token site on its own subdomain and prepares the launch for your wallet to sign, for $30. Your wallet pays the network fee and is the creator of record.
Sources
- pump.fun bonding-curve docs
- pump program README — curve constants, read against the live Global account
Checked 2026-10-31 · nothing here is financial advice, and most meme coins go to zero.