Shaw Reconstructs 90% of Pump.fun Contracts, Raising Security and Competition Questions
Eliza Labs founder Shaw says he has reverse-engineered about 90% of Pump.fun’s Solana smart contracts and expects to finish the work soon. His goal is not to build a similar launchpad, but to reproduce the deployed programs byte for byte, including any original bugs. The public GitHub repository contains deployment evidence and partial implementations, but the four core programs have not been fully reconstructed or audited.
Shaw argues that closed-source contracts create security risks, citing more than $40 million in funds stolen over the past year from projects with critical vulnerabilities in closed-source contracts. Critics counter that publishing unrepaired flaws could make attacks easier. Shaw is also promoting slop.cash, a security and private bug-bounty project, and says fees from a related meme coin could fund rewards for contributors.
The effort could increase scrutiny of Pump.fun and highlight the risks of opaque Solana contracts. However, market observers say an open-source copy alone is unlikely to dislodge Pump.fun: integrations, user trust and network effects remain important advantages. Pump.fun has not publicly responded. The development is primarily a protocol-security and competitive story, with no clear immediate market-wide trading signal.
Neutral
The news has mixed implications and does not establish a clear near-term direction for the broader crypto market. If Shaw completes a byte-for-byte reconstruction, it could help researchers inspect Pump.fun’s contracts and identify weaknesses. That may improve transparency over time, but the repository is currently incomplete and is not an audit. Publishing unrepaired vulnerabilities could also make exploitation easier, particularly if the official contracts remain unchanged.
For traders, the immediate effects are more likely to be concentrated in Pump.fun-related activity and Solana ecosystem sentiment than in major assets. A confirmed vulnerability, exploit, or official response could trigger sharper moves in related tokens and activity on Solana. In the absence of such developments, the story alone offers no clear catalyst for SOL or the wider market. Past open-source launches and protocol forks show that code availability can prompt scrutiny and copycat projects, but does not by itself guarantee adoption or displace an established platform. Pump.fun’s integrations, user base and network effects remain significant. In the longer term, the episode may add pressure on Solana projects to disclose contract code and undergo independent audits, while the success of slop.cash remains uncertain.