The Kimchi token saw a sharp pullback after a strong intraday rally — why did Pump.fun tap this deeply controversial trader for its influencer marketing campaign?
Written by Nicky, Foresight News
According to market data from GMGN on October 22, the Solana-based meme coin Kimchi saw its market cap peak at $47.58 million the previous day before sliding continuously to its current level of $22.2 million, representing a drop of more than 50% from its peak. The top individual trader holding the token, who invested $144,000 when the project’s market cap hit $33.7 million, has already recorded an unrealized loss of over $50,000.
Inspired by the influencer of the same name, this token has been dogged by controversy since its launch. Per GMGN market data, Kimchi’s market cap crossed $40 million within just one hour of its launch, with trading volume reaching $23.7 million, while Kimchi himself controls 75.32% of the token’s total supply.
The rapid short-term rally quickly generated a strong wealth effect. Per on-chain monitoring from Lookonchain, a single address generated $282,000 in profit from trading Kimchi over two hours, delivering a 332x return on investment. The address spent 8 SOL to purchase 9.91 million Kimchi tokens, then sold nearly half of that position for 1,045 SOL.
Who Exactly Is Kimchi?
From USC student to the “$40 million legend”
According to a January 2025 interview between trader Orangie and Kimchi, Kimchi was studying business at the University of Southern California at the time, an arrangement his parents pushed for to give him a backup career option. He first encountered crypto through the Fortnite gaming community, and began trading meme coins seriously in April 2024, starting with only a few hundred dollars in capital.
Also back in April 2024, he left his own Solana wallet address in the comment section of a public tweet, hoping to qualify for token airdrops.
During that interview, he showed off a Solana address holding roughly $150,000 in assets, noting he spent 15 hours a day scanning on-chain data, with a goal of retiring once he earned eight-figure USD returns. His trading style was clearly laid out in the conversation: after incurring large position losses on high-cap meme coins like POPCAT early on, he grew averse to long-term holds, and shifted to a speed-focused strategy of quick entry and exit, targeting roughly 50% intraday profit before closing his positions.
By the fall of 2024, he was earning six-figure monthly returns, and in December of that year, he hit his first seven-figure monthly profit.
What first catapulted him to fame was the January 2025 launch of the TRUMP token. Community lore widely claims he earned roughly $40 million from that token. However, per on-chain analyst Specter’s monitoring released on July 28, 2025, no verifiable evidence has been found to confirm Kimchi earned more than $40 million in profit from TRUMP.
Specter also noted that wallets linked to Kimchi have been tied to multiple token launches, bundle trading arrangements, and rug pulls. For example, on May 30, 2024, he purchased roughly $407 worth of the STAR token in the same minute it was deployed, later selling that position for about $45,600. On June 26, 2024, he bought roughly $407 worth of the MUVA token one minute after its deployment, later selling that position for about $53,000.
Kimchi does have verifiable early trading track records, and the six to seven-figure monthly profits he described in interviews are credible, but his core “$40 million earnings” brand lacks public on-chain evidence, making it closer to community legend than fact.
He almost never posts content related to trading. His social media feeds are filled exclusively with photos of luxury cars, high-end watches, travel, and parties. This “stealth millionaire” persona only amplifies external public fascination with him.
Interestingly, in Kimchi’s latest YouTube vlog posted on October 21, he appeared on camera holding a plush toy emblazoned with the Pump.fun logo while seated on his private jet.
Why Did Pump.fun Partner With Him?
On October 21, Pump.fun co-founder Alon confirmed the partnership with Kimchi in a public post, noting the pair will co-develop creative directions for the collaboration. Alon added that Kimchi is the first person to truly bridge the gap between crypto and mainstream pop culture, and the first example of a trader rising to A-list celebrity status.
This partnership makes far more sense when viewed against Pump.fun’s own operational data. Per DefiLlama metrics, Pump.fun generated $619 million in total protocol revenue in 2025, and has earned $355 million year-to-date in 2026 — a full 42.6% short of its 2025 annual revenue total, with the year already well past its midpoint as of October 22.
The volume of new tokens created on the platform is also shrinking. Per Dune analytics data, Pump.fun’s weekly new token deployments have fallen from a peak of 435,000 on January 20, 2025, to just 28,600 as of September 28 this year, a 93.4% decline. At the same time, emerging ecosystems like Robinhood Chain have siphoned off meme market traffic and user attention. The platform needs new user growth, which is unlikely to come from existing crypto-native users who already trade repeatedly across chains.
This is exactly where Kimchi’s value proposition lies. Per public metrics, he has 212,000 followers on X, 288,000 followers on Instagram, his latest Instagram post has nearly 300,000 likes, and his YouTube channel has 41,600 subscribers. His content does not include any trading tutorials, and only showcases the lifestyle that comes with sudden crypto wealth: luxury cars, high-end watches, private jet travel, and exclusive parties.
Chinese-language crypto content creator Ripe commented on this dynamic, noting that Kimchi’s persona perfectly taps into ordinary people’s fantasy of sudden wealth. Pump.fun does not even need him to call specific token picks — a single clip of him partying on a private jet is enough to make viewers imagine what their life would look like after scoring a 100x token win.
Kimchi’s social network further amplifies this distribution power. Per community research, Kimchi is closely associated with Taiwanese streamer Ray (with roughly 3.22 million Twitch followers) and Jason TheWeen (with roughly 1.25 million YouTube subscribers). The trio is known to netizens as the “Asian Avengers”. Brez, another wealth-flaunting influencer with 1.51 million Instagram followers, also regularly leaves comments and engages under Kimchi’s latest posts.
For Pump.fun, this social network chain opens access to mainstream young users outside the existing crypto ecosystem.
Skepticism and Backlash Show No Signs of Stopping
Not everyone is convinced by this playbook. English-language crypto content creator cnig69 published a post claiming that the wallets the community believes belong to Kimchi are actually controlled by people in his inner circle. He added that Kimchi profited from bundle token launches and rug pulls during past meme cycles, and only secured the Pump.fun partnership because he posts flashy photos of luxury cars and private jets.
Another creator, Maverick, directly questioned Pump.fun’s marketing choice, arguing that a slender influencer carrying a designer bag cannot “save” the platform’s sagging metrics.
More concrete accusations stem from the timeline of the token’s launch. Per creator zeropnl’s allegations, the new KIMCHI token was deployed on Pump.fun just 13 seconds after the platform rolled out its interface update, while Kimchi only updated his social media bio to link to the Pump.fun page a full minute later. This time gap is inconsistent with the behavior of a regular user, he argued, implying insiders colluded on the launch and cashed out more than $1 million within the first hour.
There are indeed two separate KIMCHI tokens on the market: an older version that launched back in July, and the new version deployed on October 20. A subset of holders of the old token sold their positions and bought into the new token in the exact same minute.
Kimchi himself did not directly deploy either token, but the timing of the new token’s launch aligns almost perfectly with the public announcement of his partnership with Pump.fun, and a large share of the new token’s supply is concentrated in a small number of addresses. Per monitoring from creator Aunt Ai, Kimchi redeemed 1.35 billion PUMP tokens worth $6.43 million on October 21. These on-chain movements overlap directly with the token launch timeline, further fueling external public suspicion.