Former Pump.fun Employee Sits in Prison as Solana Launchpad Breaks $770M in Revenue

Former Pump.fun senior developer Jarett Dunn is being held in a London prison after violating his bail conditions. The dev was jailed as he awaits a hearing regarding his attack on the Solana meme coin launchpad, which has since become a roaring success—recently passing $770 million in revenue during its 17-month lifespan.

Dunn previously pleaded guilty to fraud by way of an abuse of position, as well as transfer of criminal property, after draining an estimated $2 million from Pump.fun—where he had worked for six weeks. During an October hearing scheduled to be his sentencing, Dunn requested to vacate his guilty plea, which resulted in his legal team quitting the case.

Since then, the Canadian national has been awaiting a hearing to formally withdraw his guilty plea, which the court could decide to reject. He had been living in London throughout most of these eight months, but moved north to Liverpool on a whim in early June. Dunn told Decrypt at the time that he didn’t like London and that he preferred Liverpool due to its “emptiness.”

This move violated his bail conditions, which restricted his movement and monitored him through an ankle tag. As a result, Dunn was thrown into Walton Prison in Liverpool and held on remand, he announced on X. He was later moved to HMP Pentonville in London in July.

“Bail was denied a couple of times and I may just stick with a guilty plea and serve my time and earn a couple of degrees,” Dunn wrote on X. “Zero rap3s, zero beatings, food is great, and a lot cheaper than living on my own,” he posted.

Dunn’s legal team did not respond to Decrypt’s request for comment.

The social media posts were made by his friend Mark Kelly, who has been communicating with Dunn through a series of calls from behind bars. Kelly also confirmed details regarding Dunn’s breach of bail to Decrypt.

“He’s remarkably cool and zenlike considering his situation,” Kelly said.

Dunn’s detention came just as his former employer prepared for a massive $600 million initial coin offering. Pump.fun completed its ICO earlier this week and launched its PUMP token, which is currently the 68th largest cryptocurrency by market cap.

Before Dunn’s attack on the platform, Pump.fun was popular but still in its infancy, operating out of a WeWork office in London. Still, it had garnered a negative reputation among some observers as it became a hotbed for pump-and-dump schemes and questionable promotional stunts—including one man who set himself on fire for a token.

That’s why when Dunn drained $2 million from the platform and sent the tokens to random addresses, his suporters hailed him as the crypto Robin Hood—despite causing harm to everyday traders—which helped the attacker grow a cult-like following after he admitted to the crime.

“I just kind of wanted to kill Pump.fun because it’s something to do,” he said in an X Spaces immediately following the attack. “It’s inadvertently hurt people for a long time, and it was just gonna get worse in my opinion,” the dev said. “It was gonna explode in flames …  I just wanted to do it early before they managed to do it themselves and cause a lot more damage.”

Since then, Pump.fun has exploded in popularity and success. Its lifetime revenue has grown from $43.9 million at the time of the attack to $770 million in July, per Dune data. Pump.fun became the epicenter of the meme coin craze, birthing the likes of Moo Deng, Chill Guy, and Fartcoin, as well as its fair share of controversial tokens.

To the supporters of free-for-all “internet capital markets,” Pump.fun has matured into one of the most significant and successful crypto companies of recent years.

“Pump.fun is one of the most used apps in crypto history,” Adam Tehc, data analyst and Dune dashboard creator, told Decrypt. “It is the fuel behind this Solana meme coin run,” he said. “It’s very significant.”