Last night (April 16), Raydium (@RaydiumProtocol) officially announced the launch of its own token issuance platform — Launch Lab.

That’s right, Raydium has created its own Pump-style launch platform.

Let’s take a closer look at the details of Raydium’s “counterattack” this time.

Raydium Begins Its “Self-Defensive Counterattack”

As a veteran DEX in the Solana ecosystem, Raydium has always been the main battleground for Solana Meme coin trading. Tokens issued by Pump.fun would graduate from the “internal market” to the “external market” once they reached a certain market cap, continuing to trade on Raydium’s liquidity pool, which made Raydium a lot of money. Under the current model, Pump.fun needs to pay millions of dollars in transaction fees each year to external platforms like Raydium.

According to Block Engineering, Pump.fun once contributed 41% of Raydium’s transaction fee revenue, with Raydium earning millions of dollars just from this in 2024.

However, Pump.fun clearly had no intention of continuously supporting Raydium.

In early 2025, Pump.fun launched its own DEX — PumpSwap. This meant that Pump.fun no longer needed to rely on Raydium, and tokens launched by Pump.fun could now be traded directly on PumpSwap, with zero-fee migration. When the news broke, Raydium’s platform token $RAY plummeted, and the impact of Pump.fun’s independence on Raydium’s trading volume income and market expectations was significant.

(Extended Reading: Meme Market Decline, Pump.fun’s Self-Rescue: Can PumpSwap Sustain Future Business?)

Facing this situation, Raydium clearly didn’t plan to sit back and do nothing. And so, LaunchLab was born.

Introduction to LaunchLab

Raydium calls LaunchLab an “integrated token issuance platform for creators, developers, and communities” (with a salute emoji 🫡).

Raydium then posted a thread detailing the features of LaunchLab:

• “JustSendIt” Mode: Fast Token Issuance

Raydium refers to LaunchLab’s token issuance mode as “JustSendIt.” To issue a token, users simply need to: create the token, raise 85 SOL (approximately $11,050 USD at the current SOL price of $130), and then the token’s liquidity will automatically migrate to Raydium’s AMM. The entire process involves no migration fees, no intermediaries, and Raydium emphasizes “no gatekeepers,” meaning it’s completely on-chain, transparent, and efficient.

For more details, see: Raydium official documentation

• Customizable Features: More Options for Devs

LaunchLab offers more flexibility for token issuers.

Compared to the simple “JustSendIt” mode, which is designed for beginners, LaunchLab’s customizable features are aimed at professional players. Users can decide the token supply, total fundraising amount, sales volume on the bonding curve, and even set a lock-up period, including an optional “cliff” (a waiting period before the lock-up starts). This is a core feature that essentially determines how the token price changes with the purchase volume. LaunchLab allows users to choose from linear, exponential, or logarithmic bonding curves to meet different needs.

LaunchLab also comes with a “Burn & Earn” mechanism: if the dev (token issuer) is willing to lock LP, they can earn transaction fees. This incentivizes devs to run their projects long-term, reducing the chances of them abandoning the project after issuance. (Editor’s note: The ideal situation is great, but reality may be different 😢)

Users can also choose to enable the “Post-Migration Fee Sharing” option during the token creation process on LaunchLab.

• Transaction Fees & Referral Rewards

LaunchLab’s transaction fee is 1%, divided into three parts: 50% goes to the community pool (which can be used to reward creators and traders, such as through airdrops), 25% is used for $RAY token buybacks, and the remaining 25% goes toward infrastructure and operations.

By inviting users to use LaunchLab through referral links, referrers can earn a 0.1% SOL reward based on the trading volume of the referred users.

• Focusing on Its Own Infrastructure

Although the launch of LaunchLab is aimed at countering the trading volume diversion caused by PumpSwap, Raydium has not completely excluded other token issuance platforms. Instead, it provides infrastructure support through LaunchLab, attracting more platforms to join its ecosystem. LaunchLab supports third-party platform integration, meaning that third-party token issuance platforms can use LaunchLab’s infrastructure to issue tokens and migrate them to Raydium’s AMM for trading.

Currently, the leading platform for the LaunchLab concept is Chef Meme, which has integrated LaunchLab’s infrastructure. cook.meme, the first token launched through LaunchLab, $TIME, is currently the leading token in the LaunchLab concept, with a market cap around $5.6 million.

Raydium has also partnered with on-chain trading platforms like GMGN to help LaunchLab gain quicker visibility among on-chain players.

Can It Beat Pump.fun?

For Raydium, the launch of LaunchLab is a lifeline to regain market share in the Memecoin space and restore confidence in the market. After the launch of PumpSwap, Raydium’s trading volume noticeably declined, but following the news of LaunchLab’s launch, the $RAY token saw a 20% increase.

At the same time, the design concept of LaunchLab is not just to simply replicate Pump.fun. From its developer customization features and third-party platform integration support, Raydium aims to expand into the highly profitable Memecoin issuance field through LaunchLab, shifting from the role of the “money collector” to the “money printer” that can create income through open-source solutions. However, the product’s path is more focused on being an infrastructure that can connect more resources.

For Pump.fun, the arrival of LaunchLab will (in the short term) divert some developers and players, especially creators who want more control or those who aim to run projects long-term, along with on-chain players who are eager for new things. Meanwhile, the market is in a relatively cold period for Memecoin trading, so competition between platforms may lead to more evident user acquisition battles. However, Pump.fun has built up significant user inertia over the past year, so unless Raydium’s update results in a sustained wealth effect, the threat to Pump.fun is relatively limited.

For players, the addition of a new (or even multiple) platform has both pros and cons. On the positive side, players will experience fresh, innovative mechanisms, and the excitement of new token issuance could bring new wealth effects. However, the emergence of new platforms will inevitably divert funds. In the future, the same Memecoin concept could face not only a “case size” dispute but also a “platform legitimacy” competition between Pump.fun, Raydium, and even BSC, as money always flows to where it can earn the most.

As players hop between different trends and platforms, it’s important to stay sharp, enjoy the excitement, and cherish the moment.

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