Opening with a three-minute diss, Bankless has been criticized again.

Author: shushu

When Ethereum purists meet the most successful anonymous developer in the Solana ecosystem, a conversation that was supposed to explore product philosophy turned into a trial about whether "meme coins should exist."

Related reading: "Dialogue with Pump.fun Co-founder: I don't think my product killed the market cycle, meme coins will continue to exist"

Anonymous founder's true identity exposed

Recently, Pump.fun founder Alon was interviewed on the "Ethereum" podcast Bankless, during which he revealed half of his face at the 21-minute and 44-second mark, leading to someone piecing together a full photo of Alon.

The community quickly launched a meme coin named after Alon on Pump.fun, but dramatically, Pump.fun removed the meme's avatar.

This meme coin also had a brief life.

Currently, the episode of the podcast on Bankless no longer shows the frame where Alon's face was revealed.

Podcast controversy at the start: Is it well-intentioned but misguided?

Since its inception, Pump.fun has been shrouded in mystery, with few openly discussing how it rose to become the most PMF and profitable application of this cycle.

Last year, Alon was interviewed by Threadguy on his podcast, becoming one of the few public channels to understand the story behind Pump.fun. With the launch of the Swap platform, Alon recently accepted an interview with the crypto podcast Bankless.

In the podcast, Alon discussed the 4Chan aesthetic style, Pump.fun's content moderation strategies, introduced the new product PumpSwap, and the creator revenue sharing mechanism. Alon also responded to the competitive relationship with Raydium, explored the relationship between content, attention, and the market, and shared his views on the future of meme coins.

However, after this episode aired, it sparked some controversy, mainly due to the opening remarks by Bankless host David.

David mentioned at the outset that viewers might be surprised to see Pump.fun, the most successful application in the Solana ecosystem, appear on an Ethereum podcast, especially since Bankless has consistently opposed meme culture and believes it undermines the market.

Here are David's original words:

"In this interview, I tried to give Alon a chance to fairly express his views on meme coins, while also not shying away from reality—Pump.fun stands at the forefront of one of the most predatory market cycles in our industry's history, leaving behind a wasteland of destroyed capital. Initially, the speculation around meme coins might have seemed like a relatively harmless and fun metaverse, but ultimately this trend evolved into a structured, systematic model of value extraction, with wealth flowing only to a select few participants. With a cautious attitude, I interviewed Alon."

In other words, before the interview began, the host came in with his own preconceived stance, remaining vigilant about the potential negative impacts of Pump.fun. On one hand, David felt it was inappropriate to provide a platform for the founder of Pump.fun, given that this platform has caused many people to lose money. On the other hand, he even believed that having Alon on the podcast might allow Pump.fun to whitewash itself and advertise Pump Swap.

Prior to this, I had never seen him, and I had always been wary of the potential negative impacts of this project. I was unsure whether it was reasonable to platform such a project, especially when it could inherently lead to harmful outcomes for users. At the same time, I had to be cautious of another possibility—whether Pump.fun was trying to use Bankless to rehabilitate its reputation? After all, they recently launched Pump Swap (a Solana-based AMM DEX), attempting to pivot with a new product. Throughout this interview, the thought of "Operation Berkshire" lingered in my mind—if you're not familiar, it was a conspiracy in the tobacco industry: large tobacco companies banded together to openly deny the health risks of smoking, fund "pro-tobacco" research, undermine scientific consensus, and influence policy and public opinion by covering up the facts to maintain industry growth.

Many in the community were dissatisfied with how the podcast's opening was handled, believing that if Pump.fun were on Ethereum, such a situation would not have occurred.

Pump.fun is merely a token issuance platform; it has no authority to interfere with how users utilize it, and the fees it charges are lower than any past or existing token issuance platforms (even if it remains so years later, it only profits due to scaling). Moreover, its founder is one of the most successful consumer-level entrepreneurs in crypto history. However, in the introduction of the Bankless podcast, they were portrayed as if they were criminals, even though the show remained "open and inclusive," giving them a chance to speak, ha ha.
This is the most hypocritical podcast opening I have ever seen. They had a brilliant conversation with the founder during the show, but in the pre-recorded introduction, they began to vilify their impact on the crypto industry, questioning their motives. If Bankless treats its interview guests this way, how can they recommend entrepreneurs to appear on their show?

In November last year, David posted, "A two-week-old token generation bot completed 15% of the trading volume on the pump dot fun platform today." Clearly, the Clanker from the Base ecosystem appeared more "politically correct" on David's social media.

Returning to this podcast, after the recording ended, David still stated in the post-editing introduction that meme coins are essentially like the impact of tobacco on public health—an "inevitable harmful product," and anyone working at Pump.fun would have the motivation to deny this.

The following statement is also why David was criticized for hypocrisy—his attempt to balance the issue of values essentially blurs and evades his stance.

"We are still in the early stages of the crypto industry, and the development of meme coins is even more so; the future has yet to be written. Will future meme coins become a more productive financial tool, or will they continue to be the 'drugs' of the market? Ultimately, this will depend on the leaders of the meme coin industry. Whether we like them or not, whether they are the 'tumor of the crypto industry' or the 'starting point for a fairer financial future,' the final outcome is still uncertain."

When Pump.fun's product revenue exceeds $600 million, discussing whether meme coins should exist seems meaningless. In the interview, David asked Alon if he would do anything to make memes more sustainable if he could go back to the beginning of the meme frenzy.

Alon's response was, "If the essence of cryptocurrency is such, then when market sentiment becomes frenzied, there is actually very little you can do."

David's question implied a top-down regulatory mindset, adhering to an elitist approach, hoping that the crypto cycle would not worsen due to meme coins and PVP, as if the market needed "wise guides" to tame the frenzy of retail investors. Alon's response, however, pointed directly to the essence of the crypto world—it should be an open experiment without permission, regardless of how chaotic the results may be.

This small controversy also somewhat exposes the long-standing ecological divide in the crypto industry, with the Ethereum-style "establishment" attempting to discipline the market using a "responsible finance" framework, while ignoring the original rebellious gene of cryptocurrency; the Solana-style "barbarians" embrace the raw power of the market, even if it comes with bubbles, scams, and drastic wealth redistribution.

At the end of the podcast, David asked Alon why he chose Bankless for the podcast, given that there are many Solana ecosystem podcasts available. Alon's answer was, "Our harshest critics mainly come from the Ethereum ecosystem, and I hope they realize that we actually have a lot in common. Many arguments are overly entangled in some trivial details, and Twitter is not an ideal platform; its algorithm amplifies anger and encourages people to oppose each other. Therefore, the significant misunderstandings between the Ethereum ecosystem, Solana ecosystem, and even Pump.fun are not surprising. One of the main reasons I participated in this interview was to break down this barrier."

Perhaps the future of media lies not in how to "correctly" judge projects, but in whether it can become a translator of on-chain value and a bridge for cross-ecosystem dialogue.

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