Second lawsuit hits Pump.fun as legal pressure over meme coins intensifies
Legal trouble is catching up to Pump.fun. With two lawsuits in motion and fraud allegations flying, is this meme coin casino finally running out of luck?
Pump.fun, a platform notorious for launching meme coins on the Solana (SOL) blockchain, is now facing a second class-action lawsuit just days after the first.
The legal battle, led by Burwick Law and Wolf Popper LLP, alleges that the platform is violating U.S. securities laws by selling unregistered securities disguised as meme tokens.
The latest lawsuit, filed on Jan. 30 in the Southern District of New York, names multiple defendants, including Baton Corporation Ltd (operating as Pump.fun) and key figures Alon Cohen, Dylan Kerler, and Noah Bernhard Hugo Tweedale.
According to court filings, plaintiff Diego Aguilar claims he suffered financial losses after purchasing several tokens on the platform, including the Fwog (FWOG) token, and the Griffain (GRIFFAIN) token.
These tokens, aggressively marketed with meme culture and promises of exponential returns, allegedly led to significant losses despite reaching high valuations—such as the FWOG Token, which Pump.fun promoted as having hit a $500 million market cap.
This lawsuit follows an earlier case filed on Jan. 16 by Burwick Law on behalf of Kendall Carnahan, targeting the sale of the Peanut the Squirrel (PNUT) Token.
The complaint argues that Pump.fun operates by collaborating with influencers to co-issue and market unregistered securities. The lawsuit also alleges that the platform’s business model represents an evolved form of Ponzi and pump-and-dump schemes, extracting nearly half a billion dollars in fees from investors.
Burwick Law’s legal campaign against Pump.fun comes as no surprise. On Jan. 15, Max Burwick, the firm’s founder and partner, openly criticized platforms like Pump.fun, calling them “the ultimate evolution of multi-level marketing scams, preying on human desperation and the digital attention economy.”
That same day, his firm urged investors who lost money to memecoins through rug pulls and misleading promises to come forward, later launching a dedicated website to assist affected clients.
Beyond legal troubles, Pump.fun has also faced controversy over its platform features. In November 2024, it introduced a livestream function to boost user engagement.
However, reports quickly emerged of users misusing the feature to broadcast disturbing and explicit content, including violent material and graphic footage involving minors and animals. The backlash forced Pump.fun to shut down the feature following widespread condemnation from the crypto community.
Despite mounting legal and reputational challenges, Pump.fun continues to generate massive revenue. As of Jan. 31, data from Dune Analytics indicates that the platform’s total earnings are nearing $500 million, with nearly $47 million in revenue collected in the past week alone.
