BonkFun Slashes Creator Fees to 0% to Revive ‘ Glory’ — Are Meme Coin Launchpad Wars Back?

BonkFun just dropped a tactical nuke on the meme coin launchpad space—zero creator fees. That's right, a full 100% cut from their previous take. The move screams one thing: they want that 2024 magic back, when every degen with a dog-themed token dream was flooding their platform.

The Fee-Free Gambit

This isn't just a minor adjustment; it's a scorched-earth policy against competitors. By eliminating the fee barrier, BonkFun is betting that a massive influx of new, speculative projects will bring back the trading volume and hype that defined its peak. It's a classic liquidity play—sacrifice immediate revenue for network dominance.

Launchpad Arms Race Reignited?

The question now is whether other platforms will respond in kind. Will we see a race to the bottom on fees, sparking a new wave of innovation—or just a flood of even lower-quality tokens? One cynical fund manager we spoke to quipped, 'Great, now the pump-and-dump schemes get to keep 100% of the profits too.'

This aggressive pivot signals that the battle for the soul—and wallets—of the meme coin community is heating up again. Whether this revives the glory days or just accelerates the cycle remains to be seen. Strap in.

BonkFun Shifts Fee Model as Meme Coin Activity Fragments

The change comes at a time when meme coin activity remains high but fragmented, with traders showing clear sensitivity to fees and incentives.

BonkFun framed the update as a response to widespread frustration that creator fees have become too expensive and misaligned with trader interests.

Under the new Classic model, creators earn nothing from trading activity, while liquidity depth is prioritized to support smoother price action.

Alongside this, BonkFun is keeping an alternative path open through its “BONKERS” launches, where swap fees are reduced by as much as 50% while creator fees can be increased significantly for communities that want long-term revenue streams.

In those cases, rewards will now be paid entirely in a single quote asset, such as USD-denominated tokens, rather than split between assets.

BonkFun, also known as LetsBONK.fun, launched in April 2025 as a joint effort between the BONK community and Raydium. It quickly became a central venue for no-code meme coin creation on Solana.

Within three days of launch, more than 2,700 tokens were created, and roughly $800,000 in fees were generated, helping push BONK’s price more than 50% higher in its first week.

By July 2025, the platform had overtaken Pump.fun in market share, capturing over 55% of Solana’s token issuance during peak periods.

A defining feature of its early success was its creator fee model, which offered developers a share of trading fees while routing a large portion of platform revenue into BONK buybacks and burns.

Meme Coin Wars: Did a Fee Shake-Up Just Reshape the Launch Race

That model, however, has come under pressure as market conditions shifted. Data from the past 24 hours shows Pump.fun firmly back in the lead, with nearly 30,000 new tokens launched, over $109 million in trading volume, and more than $1.27 million in daily fees.

BonkFun, by comparison, recorded under 2,000 new tokens, about $8 million in volume, and just under $100,000 in fees.

Graduated tokens and active addresses tell a similar story, highlighting how quickly momentum can MOVE between platforms.

The fee reset also lands days after Pump.fun announced its overhaul of creator incentives, introducing tools that allow fees to be split across multiple wallets.

@Pump.fun introduces creator fee sharing to fix incentive issues for teams and curb risky, low-effort coin launches.https://t.co/Jrd1XOUZWu

Pump.fun said the goal was to correct incentives that had made coin creation low risk while leaving traders exposed, a problem that has long defined meme coin markets.

BonkFun’s shift back toward zero creator fees for certain launches reflects that same tension between fair launches and developer rewards.

Before creator fees became common, meme coins relied almost entirely on hype, fair distribution, and trading volume, often producing sharp rallies followed by brutal reversals.

Fees were later introduced to reduce rug pulls and encourage longer-term engagement, but they also raised costs for traders and changed behavior.

Market reaction has been cautiously positive so far, with the BONK token trading around $0.000012, up more than 8% over the past 24 hours, with trading volume jumping nearly 86% to over $300 million.