Pump.fun Opens Live $2.5M Squads Competition With Spot PnL Prizes
By Crypto Wire
October 26, 2026
Pump.fun’s $2.5 million Squads competition is live. Per the venue’s own October 23 thread, the two-week contest started Monday, October 26 at 14:00 UTC (7:00 a.m. PDT) and runs through Monday, November 9 at 14:00 UTC, ranking Squads by total spot PnL — realized plus unrealized — with perpetual-futures PnL excluded. First place is marked for $1.5 million, second $750,000, and third $250,000, paid in USDC or an equivalent stablecoin under the published competition terms. This GameFi chapter is the go-live beat after signup closed at the start gun — not a rehash of the earlier teaser alone.
Roster rules are hard. Squads sign up through the Squads tab with up to 20 members; every member must accept the T&Cs; membership locks at the entry deadline so you cannot add traders after the clock starts; removed members still count toward the Squad’s score. Prize shares split pro rata by positive member contribution — a member with zero or negative PnL gets nothing even if the Squad wins. Pump.fun’s example: if eleven equal contributors sit on the first-place Squad but one is negative, the other ten take $150,000 each from the $1.5 million pool.
What counts as score is narrower than “anything on Solana.” The Trading Competition Terms define Eligible Trades as bona fide spot buys and sells executed through Pump.fun’s web app, App, or Terminal during the Competition Period. Third-party bots, aggregators, and other DEX routes do not count. Starting positions held at the open can count, marked at the period’s start Mark Price; tokens received by transfer after the open generally do not. Perps, derivatives, leveraged products, and Collectibles are not Eligible Tokens. Own deployments are carved out: a token you launched is not a Counted Position.
Anti-abuse language is explicit because the prize pool is large enough to invite gaming. The terms bar wash trades, coordinated wallets beyond ordinary Squad membership, concentration above 5% of an Eligible Token’s supply, and transfers of open positions between wallets. Pump.fun says rankings are algorithmic and that it may disqualify, zero PnL, or withhold prizes for manipulative trading in its sole discretion. Identity verification and KYC can gate payout. Attribute those enforcement claims to the published Terms — do not invent a live DQ list, a current leaderboard print, or a claim that any named Squad has already locked a prize.
Keep the lane separate from Pump’s Hyperliquid perps surface. The competition thread itself says perps PnL is not included even as Pump routes BTC/ETH futures through Hyperliquid elsewhere. A Squad that prints leveraged PnL on that book does not bank it for this contest. Likewise, do not collapse this story into the separate Kimchi / boycott chatter on X; those are community reactions around the announcement window, not official prize-rule amendments unless Pump posts one.
For NFT and memecoin desks, the practical read is venue incentive design. Pump.fun is steering two weeks of spot activity onto its own app/web/Terminal stack with a $2.5 million USDC-denominated reward pool and a Squad mechanic that pays winners while cutting zero/negative contributors out of the split. The next primary receipts are an official mid-contest leaderboard screenshot from Pump channels, any rule clarification on Eligible Tokens, or the November 9 final results — not third-party PnL screenshots without a Pump confirmation. Until those land, treat informal Squad brag posts as marketing noise rather than verified Score.
World watch: Track whether Pump posts a live Squads leaderboard during week one, whether any mid-contest DQ or rule clarification lands on official channels, and how the November 9 14:00 UTC final results allocate the three USDC prize tiers after the two-week spot-only grind.
Bottom line: Pump.fun’s two-week $2.5 million Squads contest is underway from October 26 to November 9, paying the top three Squads in USDC on spot PnL only while locking out late roster adds and negative contributors.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, investment, legal, or trading advice. The NFT market is highly volatile, and past performance is not indicative of future results. Readers should conduct their own research and consult qualified professionals before making any decisions related to digital assets. The cover image for this article may have been created using artificial intelligence (AI).
