New tokens exploded on Pump.fun in early December – Is meme coin season back?

Pump.fun — the leading platform for meme coin launches — is seeing a resurgence in the number of new tokens debuting.

Analysts note that as the fiscal year draws to a close, investor sentiment is shifting toward a greater willingness to take on risk.

How does Pump.fun reflect increasing risk appetite in December?

According to Dune data, the number of new meme coins created daily on Pump.fun has remained above 20,000 throughout December. Notably, on December 2, this number surpassed 25,000 — the highest since mid-September, indicating a significant shift in market sentiment.

Daily tokens created on Pump.fun | Source: Dune Still, this recovery has yet to match the peak levels seen in early 2025. However, it does signal that investor sentiment is gradually turning more positive.

Many investors believe this is a favorable time for retail capital to return to low-cap tokens and newly launched projects.

Although the number of new tokens is trending slightly higher, revenue and trading volume on Pump.fun’s DEX remain down more than 80% compared to the peak period in early 2025.

Daily active wallets on Pump.fun | Source: Dune A notable bright spot is the number of active wallets — including both new and returning users — which has consistently averaged around 100,000 since August. Despite several major liquidations during this period, user participation has not dropped significantly.

Additionally, Michael Nadeau — founder of The DeFi Report — has highlighted a remarkable difference in user retention rates between Web2 and Pump.fun. Specifically, Pump.fun’s user retention rate reached 12.4% in week 4 and 11.4% in week 8, far surpassing the Web2 average of (5–10% in week 4 and 2–5% in week 8).

These figures bring positive expectations amid a market still under downward pressure and prolonged extreme fear throughout the final quarter of the year.

Notably, prominent trader Daan Crypto Trades also observed that meme coins have outperformed major altcoins over the past two weeks.

Crypto sector performance | Source: Daan Crypto Trades “Over the past two weeks, meme coins have been the top-performing group. It’s been a while since this group has performed so well, following a long stretch of outperformance in 2023 and 2024,” Daan Crypto Trades shared.

He emphasized that this may be an early sign the market is ready to take on higher risk, although he also cautioned that this trend could be short-lived and may not reflect a long-term shift.

A recent report from Coinphoton also points to at least three indicators that suggest meme coin season could return in December. If this scenario plays out, the Pump.fun ecosystem could become an attractive destination for retail investors — those willing to accept high risks in pursuit of large profits.

According to current data from Coingecko, the Pump.fun ecosystem ranks third in market performance in the first week of December.

Mr. Giao