A newly revised class-action lawsuit lodged in the Southern District of New York characterizes memecoin platform Pump.fun as a deceptive “front-facing slot machine cabinet” that allegedly conned users out of over $5.5 billion via misleading digital currency schemes.
The legal action, initiated on Wednesday, points fingers at Pump.fun’s operators, including the anonymous developer known as Bernie, parent firm Baton Corp., and infrastructure allies like Solana Labs, the Solana Foundation, Jito Labs, and the Jito Foundation.
The lawsuit charges these entities with functioning as an “unregulated casino,” leveraging market instability and hype instead of providing investor protections or transparent disclosures.
The filing claims, “The setup mirrors a manipulated slot machine where initial players profit by offloading their tokens on subsequent ones. There is no underlying project, product, or revenue — just a whirlwind cycle of purchasing, offloading, and collapse.”
In addition to the original allegations, the revised lawsuit intensifies the scope of the purported wrongdoing. It now includes RICO claims, fraud, aiding and abetting, civil conspiracy, and unjust enrichment. The plaintiffs are demanding nullification of all Pump.fun transactions and compensatory damages for the alleged harm inflicted by a “rigged” system.
The role of Solana-affiliated organizations in enabling the alleged scheme is highlighted in the lawsuit. The plaintiffs maintain, “Solana Labs and the Solana Foundation offered the platform — the Solana blockchain itself — and monetized each bet through block space sales, validator fees, and SOL token appreciation.”
The lawsuit also underscores the role of liquidity infrastructure provided by Jito Labs and Jito Foundation, which reportedly profited from maximum extractable value strategies linked to memecoin trading on Pump.fun.
Initially filed in January this year, the lawsuit accused Pump.fun of using guerrilla marketing to generate false urgency for “extremely volatile” tokens, which allegedly yielded nearly $500 million in fees. The token value of Pump.fun plummeted as early investors sold, causing panic among investors.
