Pump.fun bonding curve progress is how far net buying has carried a token along its launch curve. Buys push the bar forward and sells pull it back. When it reaches the end, the curve completes and the token migrates to an AMM pool, PumpSwap for current launches. Pump.fun has changed the exact thresholds over time, so read the live token page instead of trusting a quoted number.
What the bar tells a launch team
- The bar measures net buying along the curve. It does not count holders, replies or interest.
- Every sell moves it backward, so a busy tape with heavy selling can leave it flat.
- Graduation thresholds have changed before; the live token page is the only figure worth planning around.
- At completion the token moves to a pool, and a running session follows it there without a new setup.
What is the progress bar actually measuring?
A Pump.fun token starts life on a bonding curve: a pricing rule where each purchase buys tokens at a slightly higher price than the one before. There is no pool and no outside liquidity provider at this stage. The curve itself is the counterparty for every trade.
The progress bar shows how far net buying has carried the token along that curve. It is a market-structure gauge, not a popularity score. It says nothing directly about how many people hold the token, how lively the reply thread is or whether the project has a plan. Two tokens at the same position on the bar can look very different once you open their holder lists.
For a launch team, the bar works best as a clock. It tells you roughly how much more net buying stands between the token and its move into a pool, and it shows, minute by minute, whether the flow leans toward buyers or sellers.
How do buys and sells move the bar?
Because the curve prices each trade off the current position, the bar responds to net flow rather than to the number of trades. A thousand small trades that cancel each other out leave it about where it started. A few buy-heavy minutes can push it forward visibly.
| Event on the curve | Effect on the bar | Effect on price |
|---|---|---|
| A buy | Moves forward | Rises along the curve |
| A sell | Moves back | Falls along the curve |
| Equal buys and sells in SOL | Roughly unchanged | Roughly unchanged |
| Buy-leaning flow over an hour | Moves forward gradually | Drifts up with it |
| One large sell | Steps back at once | Drops at once |
This is why the buy share of a session matters while the token is on the curve. The built-in presets sit between 58% and 68% buys by order count. A session with 1,000 wallets runs about 1,600 orders, so a 60% share means roughly 960 buys and 640 sells. Every order size is drawn at random inside the same band, so the two sides tend to have similar average sizes. The buy and sell split guide covers how to choose that number.
Other traders count too. A holder who sells a large bag during the session moves the bar back no matter what the session is doing, and the table above applies to their trades exactly as it applies to yours.
Why does no one quote an exact graduation number?
Search for the market cap at which a Pump.fun token graduates and you will find several confident answers that disagree. The reason is simple: Pump.fun has changed the parameters behind the curve more than once, and figures repeated in chats and old posts lag behind the current rules.
For planning, that means two habits. First, read the live token page on Pump.fun for the token you care about, on the day you care about it. Second, plan in terms of the bar, not a dollar figure. A plan written around the bar survives a parameter change; a plan built on a remembered number may not.
If someone promises to graduate a token at a specific market cap, ask where the number came from. It may describe an older version of the curve.
What happens when the curve completes?
When the bar reaches the end, the curve completes and the token migrates to an AMM pool. Since 2025, new Pump.fun graduations go to PumpSwap, Pump.fun's own AMM. Tokens that graduated earlier went to Raydium, and they still trade there. The full comparison is in PumpSwap vs Raydium.
- Trading moves from the curve to the pool, so the progress bar stops being the useful gauge.
- Price comes from the ratio of reserves in the pool, so impact per order depends on pool depth.
- Pool-indexing tools such as DexScreener list a pair once it exists and has at least one trade.
- Aggregators tend to start routing outside orders through the new pool.
For the team, completion is a moment of peak attention. Links, socials and the announcement of the pool should be ready before the bar gets close, not written after it fills.
How does a volume session behave before and after completion?
Before completion, every session order trades against the curve. Buys push the bar, sells pull it back, and the buy share decides which way the session's own flow leans. PumpCrest does not aim a session at a particular position on the bar; the bar responds to the whole market, not only to the session.
If the curve completes while the session is running, execution follows the token into its pool inside the same session: PumpSwap for current launches, Raydium for older ones. You do not reconfigure or pay again. After migration, mirroring to Meteora and Orca is available as an option.
Take the Slow build preset as an example: 1,200 wallets at 0.10-0.40 SOL over 3 hours. The average order is 0.25 SOL, so the target volume is 300 SOL and the fee at 1% is 3 SOL, for about 1,920 orders. If the curve completes 90 minutes in, something like half the orders land on the curve and the rest in the pool. Spacing is uneven by design, so treat that split as approximate.
How should a team read the bar during a launch?
- Note the bar's position before the session starts and again every 30 minutes.
- Compare movement with the session's buy share. Flat progress during a buy-leaning session usually means other wallets are selling into it.
- Watch the trades list for single large sells, which show up as a sudden step back.
- When the bar is close to the end, have the post-migration plan ready: the pool announcement, updated links and someone watching the pair page.
- Run through the launch checklist before the first session, so nothing on the page breaks when attention peaks.
Questions and answers
Does the progress bar show how many holders a token has?
No. It reflects net buying along the curve. A token can sit high on the bar with a handful of large holders, or low with many small ones, so check the holder list separately. During a session the console shows an estimated unique-holder count of about 62% of wallets, which is an estimate and should be read as one.
Can a volume session complete the bonding curve?
It can contribute, because buy-leaning orders push the bar forward while they trade on the curve. Whether the curve completes depends on the whole market: other buyers, other sellers and where the bar started. PumpCrest shows what settled on-chain and makes no promise about completion, a rank or a price.
Why did my bar go backwards during a session?
Someone sold more than was bought in that window. Sells from any wallet pull the bar back, and one holder exiting a large position can outweigh many small buys. That is normal behavior on a curve, not a fault in the session. The trades list on the token page shows which wallets sold and when.
Should I start a session early or wait until the bar is high?
It depends on what you want the session to accompany. Starting early spreads activity across the curve phase; starting late puts more of it in the pool after migration. The timing guide walks through both cases. Either way, the session follows the token if the curve completes, so you do not need two separate orders.
Do session costs change once the token moves to PumpSwap?
No. The flat 1% fee on target volume already covers swap fees on every trade, Solana base and priority fees, Jito tips, token account rent and session wallet funding, wherever the orders land. A 300 SOL target costs 3 SOL whether the trades happen on the curve, in PumpSwap or in Raydium, and the minimum target is 100 SOL.
Shape a session that rides the curve
Open the PumpCrest console, paste your mint, and pick a length and buy share that suit where the bar sits today. If the curve completes, the session moves with the token.
We build the PumpCrest console and write these guides from the operator side: what a session spends, what settles on-chain and what a visitor sees on the board. Corrections are welcome at support@pumpcrest.com.