RiskMemecoins are highly speculative, and most lose nearly all their value. Nothing here is financial advice. The risks in full
What is a community takeover?
A community takeover, or CTO, is when a coin's community replaces the person who launched it. On pump.fun, it means control over the coin's creator fees and certain admin rights passes from the original creator to a team or person the community chose.
This is how pump.fun describes it in section 4.6 of its Terms of Use, last updated on 4 November 2026 and read on 14 November 2026.
Why do communities take over coins?
Most CTOs follow a creator who has left: sold their coins, stopped posting, or abandoned the coin's accounts while people still hold it.
- Holders want someone to keep the coin's accounts and community going.
- Without a CTO, the creator fees from every trade keep going to a creator who has gone.
- A new team can redirect those fees to work on the coin, or to its holders.
What does a CTO change, and what doesn't it?
A CTO changes who controls the creator fees and some admin settings. It doesn't change the coin itself: its address, supply, curve and everyone's holdings stay as they were.
| Changes | Stays the same |
|---|---|
| Who receives creator fees | The coin's address and supply |
| Some admin rights over the coin | Every holder's coins |
| A Cashback coin can become a Holder Rewards coin | The bonding curve, or the PumpSwap pool after graduation |
| A Holder Rewards coin's rate can change | Its trading history |
The last two rows are from pump.fun's fee page: a Holder Rewards rate can't be changed after launch except through a CTO, and Cashback coins can only change mode through one.
What does it mean for a coin's creator?
pump.fun's terms say that by accepting creator fees, a creator accepts that those fees may be re-routed through the CTO process. A creator's fees aren't guaranteed to stay theirs.
- A creator who stays active and keeps the coin's accounts running gives the community less reason to take over.
- pump.fun decides each case, under terms set out in the CTO application.
- Launching through a tool doesn't change this: the launch wallet is the creator, and the same rules apply. memetools takes no part in CTOs.
How creator fees are earned in the first place is in pump.fun creator fees.
What should holders check?
A CTO is a change of team, not a guarantee of anything. Check who the new team is and what they say they'll do with the fees, the same way you'd check a new coin.
- Is the takeover confirmed on pump.fun, or only claimed on social media?
- Who is the new team, and where do they post?
- Where will the creator fees go now: to the team, to holders, to something else?
- Did the old team's wallets sell? A CTO doesn't change what the old creator still holds.
A post announcing a CTO is easy to fake, and so is a new account claiming to be the coin's team. See Fake memecoin contract addresses and impostor accounts.
Risks
A takeover doesn't make a coin worth more, and a new team can leave just as the old one did. Memecoins are highly speculative, and most lose nearly all their value.
- pump.fun decides CTOs at its own discretion, and its rules for them can change.
- The old creator's coins aren't touched by a CTO and can still be sold.
- Nothing here is financial advice.