Pump.fun token trades at a premium in pre-market as whales appear to hedge before ICO

Whales appear eager to trade Pump.fun’s token as wallets deposited millions to interact with a frothy pre-sale market offered by decentralized perpetual futures exchange Hyperliquid and Binance.Three large traders have deposited a combined $11 million in USDC stablecoin on Hyperliquid to short the newly listed PUMP perpetual contract with minimal leverage, likely a hedge against the token allocation they expect to receive in Pump.fun’s public sale on July 12.Wallet “0xAc72” placed $4 million in margin and opened a 2x leveraged short worth $1.07 million at an entry of $0.00504. The liquidation price sits at $0.02138, giving the trader a wide buffer if PUMP’s price spikes.Two other wallets, which posted a combined $7 million, are running 1x leverage, Lookonchain noted, citing data from explorer Hypurrscan. Together, the trio’s open interest totals about $2.39 million, a fraction of their collateral, signaling a defensive stance rather than a directional bet.PUMP open interest on Hyperliquid has surged over $43 million since the platform listed the pre-market token in early European hours on Thursday. Binance also listed a PUMP perpetual contract, which quickly reached north of $12 billion in trading volume. Some market watchers say whales are using Hyperliquid and other pre-market trading contracts to lock in current valuations before the Pump.fun token generation event, either to arbitrage their expected airdrop or book short-term profit if retail demand drives prices higher.Pump.fun ICOThe Pump.fun token initially traded at a 40% premium to its announced sale price, but the market has since seen a decline. PUMP, which soared as high as $0.0056 on Hyperliquid, before slumping to around $0.0048 at the time of writing, much closer to its initial coin offering price of $0.004.Pump.fun, a Solana-based meme-coin launchpad, announced the token in June alongside plans for revenue sharing. The public sale begins July 12 on Bybit and runs till July 15, with 33% of PUMP’s total 1 trillion supply split across a fully allocated private sale (18%) and a public sale (15%).The current pricing would value Pump.fun at $4 billion, higher than the initial $1 billion target set by the platform. Fever around the sale has attracted speculation on prediction markets. Polymarket shows brisk trading on whether the fully diluted valuation will exceed $4 billion to $10 billion within 24 hours of launch, with the former holding the highest chances at 76%.Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.© 2025 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.