Pump.fun removed a controversial live-streaming feature from its website Monday after some meme coin creators began performing shocking live stunts in order to promote their tokens.
Reported live stunts included creators’ performing degrading acts and threatening to shoot their pets.
DL News could not independently verify the existence of particularly shocking videos that were purportedly broadcast on the website.
But Alon, the company’s pseudonymous founder, has said that hundreds of disturbing videos, including two in which meme coin creators threatened to kill a cat and a dog, had been removed.
Alon did not immediately reply to DL News’ requests for comment.
Pump.fun is a website that makes it fast and easy to launch meme coins. It has taken the Solana blockchain by storm, with almost 4 million meme coins launched via the platform since it went live earlier this year.
Content moderation is often viewed askance in crypto, an industry where freedom of speech and “censorship resistance” are valued highly.
Even so, a flurry of complaints about the videos on Pump.fun suggests that even crypto has its limits, as some critics called on Pump.fun to remove the livestream feature.
Alon acknowledged on X on Friday that content moderation “hasn’t been great.”
But in a subsequent post, he defended his company and said it actively moderates images, videos, livestreams, and comments shared on the website.
“We have a large team of moderators working around the clock and an internal team of engineers that’s working on helping us deal with increased scale of coins, streams, and comments,” Alon wrote.
“I admit that our moderation isn’t perfect, so if you’re aware of a coin where moderation isn’t enforced, please report it in our support channels immediately.”
Some critics have likened recent activity on Pump.fun to the dystopian science fiction television series “Black Mirror,” with its focus on the ways that technological progress can harm society.
In one apparent recording of a Pump.fun livestream shared on X, a man fires a gun at a target offscreen, presumably through an open window.
A post that shared purported screenshots of several shocking videos included one in which a child threatened to shoot his family with a shotgun.
Beau, the pseudonymous head of security at Pudgy Penguins, the company behind the eponymous NFT collection, was among those who called for Pump.fun to remove its livestream feature. But added that he doesn’t believe it says anything about crypto’s commitment to so-called permission-less technology.
“Pump.fun is not decentralized,” he told DL News. “People CAN do anything they want on the blockchain, but Pump.fun shouldn’t be paying people to make tokens that are related to physical danger or violence.”
Beau said he would like to see Pump.fun publish more information about its content-moderation efforts.
“They should basically have a few systems including moderation review of livestream tokens, a reporting system and automated detection of content that violates their guidelines (yet to be published),” he said.
Aleks Gilbert is a DeFi correspondent based in New York. Have a tip? Contact him at aleks@dlnews.com.
