What happens when a pump.fun coin migrates

Every pump.fun coin starts on a bonding curve. Most never leave it. The few that do go through a handover called migration, or graduation, and the minutes around it are some of the most chaotic in a coin's life. If you are copying a wallet that trades migrations, it helps to know what is happening underneath.

Life on the curve

On the curve, the price is a formula of how much SOL the curve holds. There are no other traders' orders to match: you buy from the curve and sell back to it. The price rises with the square of the SOL inside, which is why early buys move it so much. We work through the numbers in what a big first buy does to the price.

The curve has a fixed allotment of tokens to sell. On pump.fun's standard parameters, that is roughly 800 million of the 1 billion supply, which works out to around 85 SOL paid in when the last of it sells. pump.fun can change those parameters, so treat the numbers as a guide.

The handover

When the allotment is sold, the curve is complete. The SOL it collected and the tokens it did not sell are moved into a liquidity pool, and trading continues there. Since 2025 that pool is on PumpSwap, pump.fun's own exchange. Earlier, graduating coins went to Raydium.

From that moment the coin is an ordinary Solana token in an ordinary pool. Aggregators can route to it, other trading tools can reach it, and the price is set by the pool's reserves rather than the curve's formula.

Why the chart often goes wild

• New buyers arrive. Some traders and tools only trade coins that have migrated. The moment it happens, they can reach it.
• Early holders exit. Wallets that bought on the curve often use the graduation to take profit. That is a lot of selling in a short time.
• Liquidity is thin at first. A fresh pool can be shallow, so each trade moves the price a lot in either direction.
• Bots race. Automated traders compete on the first blocks of the pool, which adds to the spikes.

The result is a lot of volatility in a short window. Sometimes the coin keeps running. Often it gives back a large part of its move. There is no reliable rule for which.

What it means when you copy

Three practical points:

1. Your tool must trade on both sides. If a wallet bought on the curve and sells after migration, your copy has to be able to sell in the new pool. copypump routes each trade to wherever the coin trades, curve or pool.
2. Slippage is higher around migration. Fast moves and shallow pools mean copied trades land further from the price the wallet got. A slippage tolerance that is too tight can mean the copy is refused in exactly these minutes.
3. Watch the exits. Many insiders sell into the graduation. If the wallet you copy is one of them, you want its sell copied, proportionally, as fast as possible.

The short version

Before migration, a formula sets the price. After it, a pool does. The handover brings new buyers, early sellers and thin liquidity together in a few minutes, which is why it is so volatile. If you copy through it, make sure the sells are copied, and set your slippage and filters for the kind of coin you actually want to hold. For the basics, see how pump.fun works.