Of course, the money will be distributed in Fartcoin, a meme cryptocurrency that trades at a little over 10 cents at the time of publication, with a total market capitalization of about $130 million.
Pump.Fun Go, one of the fastest growing crypto businesses in the last few years, is the promise of a new feature on Pump.Fun. It is believed to allow users to “pay anyone to do anything”. Crypto rewards are staked by individuals – or collected from multiple wallets – and held in escrow by Pump.Fun until the countdown timer expires. You are supposed to get a reward for completing a task; Creators get a refund if no one completes the mission.
Pump.Fun, whose legal department did not return requests for comment, has said without clarifying its process that it controls and approves the presentation of rewards as well as relevant collection claims. The initial wave of GO rewards included the temptation of parachuting into a World Cup game in a Memecoin-themed costume and prompting a black man to cover himself in a watermelon and repeat the phrase “I’m your friend, watermelon man.”
The terms of service state that GO users are responsible for their “actions, decisions, wallet security, submissions, communications, and compliance with law.” They also warned that the platform may remove content, suspend accounts, and cooperate with third-party authorities in cases of “fraud, scams, market manipulation, infringement, hacking, scraping, abusive or illegal content, stolen property, unlawful financial activity, or other harmful or prohibited conduct.” Crypto transfers and rewards are “not guaranteed” in accordance with these Terms.
The GO feature, coming just as the platform is experiencing a massive decline in user engagement, promises more allegations of lawlessness and deceptive practices for Pump.Fun, which is already a lightning rod for controversy. Many bounties, such as the request for footage of a Memecoin-themed car exploding into a ball of flame, are filled with AI-generated imagery presented as proof of a completed task. People who actually complete a challenge have no apparent recourse if someone else’s submission is selected as the winner by Pump.Fun according to some unspecified backroom criteria.
The fine print may also complicate the picture: A $215 bounty titled “Go to McDonald’s and get a burger” specifies that the payout will be split between the first 20 valid entries, each coming out to $10.75 in crypto — which is less than most pay for their meal.
Although that generosity is mundane, others are still open at this time that are surprisingly dystopian, exploitative, or harmful. There are many requests from users to get the names of different cryptocurrencies tattooed on their bodies, and a man in India has already got the equivalent of $3,000 tattooed on his forehead. (Videos depicting people accomplishing more outrageous tasks often come from users in countries outside the US.) You can record yourself asking a gas station attendant for a pill to help your flaccid penis for about $100, interview several homeless people and ask who they voted for ($700), or quit your job on camera ($3,000). The final prompt reads, “Bonus points for style, creativity, and chaos.” “This is your severance package.”
Andrew Ford Lyons, a technologist who works on digital safety and security projects for human rights groups and other organizations, tells WIRED that GO is encouraging coercion, harassment, and significant physical and legal risks, “taking advantage of inequality” for online entertainment. “This is essentially what the digital economy is boiling down to,” he says.
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