Pump.fun vs. Twitch: The Streaming Arc Sustainability Test

Over the years, we’ve come across various iterations of internet money.

First came the e-commerce mania, then the search-and-ads economy of the early 2000s, followed by the rise of social media influencers, and finally the creator-driven monetization wave that gained momentum in 2010.

Not to forget the memecoin speculation frenzy, and the latest streaming and live economy era.

What is wild is that we’re now watching the last three forms mentioned above merge into one product.

Pump.fun started out as a quick-token launchpad on Solana, but now it’s become this mashup of creator monetization, streaming and live economy, and memecoin speculation - all rolled into one.

On the memecoin front, Pump.fun’s success speaks for itself. It became the most rapidly expanding revenue-generator app in crypto, reaching $100 million in revenue in just 217 days from when it first went live, and that was without streaming or any extra features.

Pump.fun still tops the token launchpad market, not just on Solana but the entire crypto launchpad category, so much so that at this point, it’s only fair to call it the go-to app for memecoin speculation.

On the creator monetization front, Pump.fun first stepped into streaming by incentivizing memecoin creators.

The rewards alone weren’t groundbreaking compared to apps outside its niche, but they served as the perfect Trojan horse to usher in “creator capital markets” by including streaming into its product suite.

This trajectory tells us one simple thing - it will be quite unpopular to underestimate Pump.fun in the streaming and live economy front, especially as this comes at a time when the romance between offchain companies, products, stakeholders, and the onchain world is becoming increasingly steamy.

Moreso, the stats are too good to ignore, with Pump.fun’s 7-day claimed creator payouts measuring ~2.17% (~$21.8 million) of Twitch's unofficial amount estimated to have been paid to creators in 2024 (~$1 billion).

The big question is, how sustainable is Pump.fun’s model really?

Sure, building capital markets for creators sounds exciting, but Pump.fun is still a long way from knocking a giant like Twitch off its throne… or is it?

In a world where everything seems to be accelerating, we might just be staring at another “Nokia-iphone moment.”

Over the next few paragraphs, we’ll dig into this idea, Twitch as the established giant, and Pump.fun as David. We’ll explore different perspectives and examine the sustainability of the “creator capital markets” meta.

Sit tight.

Twitch’s Goliath status  

Over time, Twitch has grown into a culture-driven live entertainment platform, where creators can easily find and build communities in an environment designed exactly for that.

Before Twitch, people could still go live on YouTube, but discovering your tribe, whether as a viewer or a creator, was mostly left up to recommendation algorithms that never really got it right.

But beyond culture being a moat for Twitch, it does have some pretty wild and insane success stories in streamers like Kai and Ishowspeed - both successful creators who have reached celebrity status by streaming on the platform.

What’s even more interesting is that despite rumours of competitors like Kick lurking or even offering insane figures to poach these streamers, some have remained loyal to Twitch.

Twitch’s giant status isn’t huff and puff - let’s look at the figures real quick:

Twitch has an outstanding 240 million monthly active users, out of which daily login figures stand around 35 million.

Its highest estimated revenue is $2.8 billion, registered in 2022, a billion dollars more than last year’s (2024) revenue, which is estimated to be $1.8 billion.

Considering that Twitch reportedly paid out ~ $1 billion to creators in 2024, this means that the platform pays a larger percentage (over 50%) of its revenue back to creators.

But how and where does this revenue come from?

Twitch’s core revenue streams revolve around subscriptions (subs), ads, and a virtual currency called bits.

Viewers can (not compulsory) subscribe to individual channels for $4.99, $9.99, or $24.99 a month to unlock perks like exclusive emotes and ad-free viewing; Twitch takes a cut of these fees (typically 50/50 with the streamer, except you’re as big as Kai, Speed, or DDG, then you can potentially negotiate better deals).

As mentioned above, viewers can also buy “Bits,” Twitch’s virtual currency, which they can spend to “cheer” during streams. Streamers get $0.01 per Bit, while Twitch profits from the markup on sales.

On top of that, Twitch runs ads before and during streams and shares a portion of this revenue with creators, though most of the value stays with the platform.

On a more granular scale, Twitch earns through premium services and integrations.

For example, Twitch Turbo, a monthly subscription, removes ads, while Amazon Prime members can link their account for free channel subscriptions through Prime Gaming.

These little things generate additional revenue for Twitch.

Lastly, the company also takes a cut from game sales and in-stream purchases.

That said, it’s worth noting that most of Twitch’s revenue, and the way it’s shared is heavily tied to viewership.

This means the platform is really optimized for the top streamers. Creators in smaller niches, without huge audiences, are left scrambling, while the big names walk away with the lion’s share of the revenue.

This is the Achilles heel that Pump.fun sees, promising a more rewarding experience for creators, irrespective of size, through the financialization of entertainment, otherwise called creator capital markets. Let’s look at the details, shall we?

Pump.fun streaming: How Creator Capital Markets (CCMs) work?

Creator Capital Markets is simply a derivative of the once viral Internet Capital Markets that had Ben Pasternak’s Launchcoin at the center of attention.

Internet Capital Markets refers to tokens created by early-stage startups or ideas in need of extra runway or capital to build or ramp up marketing.

Users would trade these tokens, with a portion of the trading fees going to the startup idea.

However, Creator Capital Markets refers to the financialization of entertainment wherein creators have tokens tied to their activity without necessarily “launching” or being directly “responsible” for the market performance of these tokens.  

For streaming, a streamer can have a token tied to their content, allowing viewers to buy and sell these tokens with the transaction fees accruing to the creator.

The way it works is that a creator or streamer can simply get on Pump.fun, click on “create new coin,” name the coin “xyz live” or whatever, proceed to create a ticket for the coin, add social handles, then proceed to the created coin’s page and start live-streaming directly or using an RTMP like OBS or any other streaming software to go live.  

Users can also multi-stream to Twitch and other streaming platforms simultaneously using OBS.

After setting up and going live through the created coin, users (stream viewers or anyone) can buy and sell that coin, while the creator gets the transaction fees generated from buying and selling.

These fee is made available instantaneously (instant monetization), meaning creators don’t have to grow to a certain threshold to begin earning perks, nor wait for payouts.

They can earn daily, hourly, or by the minute on Pump.fun, a really big difference from the way Twitch works.

Given that Pump’s creator capital markets streaming model is fresh, there are lots of small creators making life-changing money in hours or within less than a week from debuting on the platform.

But this isn’t the only peculiar thing about Pump.fun’s CCM model, so how about we go through more of this in its own section? Yeah!

The case for Pump.fun’s CCM sustainability

Beyond the fact that the CCM has stronger, more aligned creator incentives, which benefit both big and small creators in terms of actual money making, it’s also a mega visibility tool.

In just a few weeks of the model’s existence, we’ve seen creators on big blogs like Rolling Stone.

Pump.fun’s model fuels the creativity in creators, as visibility and virality can attract instant revenue.

When we really think about this, considering the last time we saw a random creator from Twitch make it to the blogs that wasn’t Kai, Speed, or DDG, and the celebrities they hang out with on their streams, it literally puts a lot of things into perspective.

Imaginary marketing pitch - Late on rent? Do something creative on Pump.fun, go viral, and stop seeing your landlord’s face for a while.

This factor is undoubtedly a magnet for creators, which could ideally lead to a gradual but really rapid growth in monthly active users and streamers.

Another case for the CCM model is that it sort of eats into the idea of Internet Capital Markets and the supposed competitor “Heaven DEX’s” moat, with how it could be used to fund ideas and also public good acts.

This is beginning to take shape with streams like Kindness coin, which carries out random acts of kindness while allowing viewers to watch a stream that displays an AI-made “kind” character while users buy and sell the $KIND stream coin to fund more random donations and acts of kindness by the stream owner.

Another case in point is the kid (Gaza Boy) who streams from a war-torn area (Gaza) and gets to keep the fees to survive through the harsh conditions of such an unfortunate living situation.

We’ve also come across streams of folks building or vibe coding entire startup ideas with the promise that the fees will go into capital for the startup, as well as teachers in third-world countries streaming their tutorials to raise funds to further equip the classrooms (as seen below).

These trends and factors simply support the idea that users will follow good and wholesome content, especially when such content is rewarded through a model that enables the creators to access their earnings instantly.

On top of all this, it’d be a mistake to overlook Pump.fun’s massive war chest, having pulled in nearly $1 billion in revenue in under 24 months.

This gives Pump.fun the firepower not just to scale as a product, but to launch bold marketing campaigns that could easily push it further into the spotlight.

Lastly, Pump.fun takes a less strict approach to the type of content streamed directly on the platform.

There’s an NSFW switch button that allows users to choose whether they want NSFW content or not.

This inherently means that when it comes to NSFW content, the policy is quite relaxed, allowing adult creators to hop on and earn from the CCM model as well.

This opens the door to a really large TAM, which can technically become a comparative advantage vis-à-vis other streaming platforms with stricter restrictions.

However, while there are a number of reasons why the CCM model might be sustainable, there are some pretty big concerns that could ideally make anyone pessimistic about running a streaming and live entertainment platform on such a model. Let’s get into it.  

Risks and challenges with Pump.fun’s CCM model

One issue with financializing entertainment is that things can go from wholesome to really pretty dark.

Ironically, despite the pros of Pump.fun’s loose NSFW policy, the testimonials from early creators trigger an addictive financial lust that will ultimately push incoming creators to go the extreme for content that is, to be honest, quite far from normal.

An example is an uncensored stream of someone giving birth to a baby on a live stream:

And if you think this is disturbing, it gets worse. There’s been su*cide tickers and streams floating around too, a sign that such a financial model can lead to a loss of control.

Reining in these kinds of streams is tough, especially since sign-ups can be done through wallets that aren’t tied to a streamer’s real identity.

So, an outright ban is nearly impossible. Even if wallet addresses get blacklisted, users can just spin up a new one and keep going.

The big question is - how much longer before there’s some real damage that might invite regulatory pressure on the platform?

Another challenge with the creator capital model is that, right now, it basically requires creators to go live through a coin - and that’s it.

This not only alienates those who might just want to use the platform but also makes the financialized side of the app the main (and sometimes only) draw for users.

Compare that to Twitch, where people stick around for way more than just creator rewards.

They care about the overall experience - the app’s quality, its usability, and all the community-driven aspects that go beyond pure incentives.

With creator capital markets, speculation drives creator incentives, which means the entire model lives and dies on viewer sentiment.

If attention fades for a creator, their earnings drop sharply due to a lesser volume on the coins tied to their streams. Since the coins tied to their streams lose volume, creators' earnings can nosedive just as fast.

For creators, this turns streaming on Pump.fun into a constant rabbit chase, always fighting to stay relevant or risk watching their income fade into obscurity.

This setup doesn’t exactly encourage steady, sustainable growth.

Instead, it pushes away streamers who’d rather take a more measured, realistic path, one that allows for natural ups and downs.

A vivid example is the $BAGWORK lads experiencing a 90% crash in a few hours after momentum began to die and their antics no longer seemed funny to their audience.

This price action gives off the impression of a rug pull, making the market look extremely volatile, capable of deterring new money from coming in to participate in the “fun.”

Another perceived challenge worth mentioning is that for small streamers, going from 0-100 in net worth overnight can be overwhelming, which might lead to suboptimal decisions like choosing to rug or create multiple stream coins thereby rugging their audience.

Lastly, the discovery on the app is borderline impossible compared to apps like YouTube and Twitch that make it easy to find the content you’re looking for.

Scrolling through a horde of uncategorized content is really poor user experience.

These challenges might not be exhaustive, yet the mentioned issues or events are still largely concerning.

Key differences between Pum.fun’s CCM model and Twitch

While it might technically be unfair to comparatively analyze both platforms at the moment, there are indeed some key differences that can be highlighted to make things a bit clearer.

In terms of scale, the difference between the two platforms is obvious - 240 million monthly visitors is too gigantic compared to active wallets on Pump.fun.

However, this puts a lot into perspective in terms of what Pump.fun can possibly achieve from where it stands, considering its rapid growth.

On revenue distribution, Pump.fun seems to be much more favorable to small creators (the majority of creators on any platform), giving them instant monetization, visibility, and even an in-built clipping economy.

Conversely, Twitch operates a top-heavy incentive system that streamlines the majority of the income to the top 1%.

Twitch relies on its subscription, ads, and virtual currency model to incentivize creators while also generating revenue for itself by splitting income from these sources with the creators.

Another major difference between CCM and Twitch is the audience motive.

For Twitch users, it’s sort of primarily entertainment driven, however with financialized entertainment being the bone of the CCM model, speculators are disguised as users or viewers.

Does it work? I think so.

Both platforms also differ in community dynamics.

Twitch has, over time, built  a more thorough and consistent community culture, while Pump.fun’s community culture is still taking shape with a large question mark around the possibility of the model engendering deep rooted community culture.

Verdict

Looking ahead, Pump.fun sits at a really fascinating crossroad, probably an enviable one to be honest.

In the best-case scenario, it establishes a new vertical in streaming, one where entertainment, speculation, and the $PUMP token merge to create a financialized attention economy.

Worst case scenario ? Another flash in the pan.

The moat for creator capital markets remains lowering barriers for new creators, instant monetization, and the viral-creativity-user inflow loop - quite enough for Pump.fun to onboard audiences beyond the crypto-native crowd.

Albeit, there’s a limit to this audience. For Pump.fun to truly scale, it will need to look towards more sustainable measures around how this would work, far beyond its current iteration.

This is because the risks and challenges remain just as visible. There is a one-sided, imbalanced dependence on streamer coin speculation as the driving force for user acquisition that, frankly, could cause communities to vanish as quickly as they form.

To compete with giants like Twitch, Pump.fun must prove it can convert excitement into longevity.

That could mean focusing more on usability, adding new revenue streams like Twitch’s, and building features that really serve communities and niches.

It might also mean making tough calls like cutting off NSFW content to protect brand value, and reworking streamer coin mechanics so traders don’t get rekt by a streamer choosing to stream from a different coin, or fall victim to unexpected price crashes caused by inactivity.

Writer’s thoughts on Pump.fun's Sustainability

Pump.fun’s rise has been meteoric, eventful, and interesting to watch. The platform has been relentless even when it did face a bit of threat from competitor platforms on Solana.

Now that Pump.fun has entered its streaming era, it has to face the reality of where it stands and what lies ahead.

No matter what mode (Jew or bald founder arc) this feels like for Alon (Pump.fun’s co-founder), the app will have to gear up for bigger, more ambitious battles to cement itself as a true streaming giant.

The challenge is surely moving beyond novelty.

Financial entertainment might sound cute and exciting right now, but there’s something to learn from Twitch’s sustained success.

Not every approach has to be totally contrarian from the competition being trodden.

We believe that sustainability can also come from blending the moat with an adaptation of what works while layering in the new.  

However, what Pump.fun has achieved in such a short period of time is truly remarkable, and if it all works out, we could be staring at another crypto native giant app added to crypto’s Mount Rushmore, just besides successful stablecoins.