On May 7, 2025, Metaplanet Inc. acquired an additional 555 Bitcoins, utilizing $25 million raised through zero-coupon bonds issued to EVO FUND. The entire raised capital was directed towards purchasing Bitcoin, totaling approximately $53.4 million at an average price of $96,134 per coin. This acquisition has resulted in a 136.7% year-to-date BTC yield for the company. With this purchase, Metaplanet now holds 5,555 BTC, acquired for a total of around $481.5 million at an average price of $86,672 per Bitcoin, reflecting solid strategic planning. Contine To Read
Cardano price sits above a crucial support level and may experience a bull run in May. Its daily volume in the spot market continued to rise, reaching $700 million today. Also, the open interest in the futures market is above its April lows. These factors, together with the positive weighted funding rate, means that ADA price could surge soon.
The ADA price today trades at $0.70, having risen by almost 40% from its April low.
Cardano Price Boosted by Rising Spot and Futures Volume
A potential bullish catalyst for the Cardano price is that signs of demand are emerging in the futures and spot market. CoinGecko data shows that the trailing Cardano volume jumped to over $700 million on Thursday.
Cardano Volume
This continues a trend that started late last month when the daily volume has averaged above $700M on weekdays. For example, its spot volume soared to $1.035 billion on April 25.
A rising volume, especially when a cryptocurrency is experiencing a surge, is a sign of increased demand from both retail and institutional investors. The volume on centralized and decentralized exchanges can also jump when a crypto is crashing, as holders sell.
In line with this, Cardano price could rise as the futures open interest in the futures market rises. Per CoinGlass, the open interest rose to $782 million on Thursday. While this figure is lower than its weekly high, it is much higher than the April low of $576 million.
Open interest is a crucial metric in the futures market, as it measures the number of unfilled call and put trades in the futures market. The interest often rises when a cryptocurrency is in an uptrend. A reversal usually happens when the OI overshoots, as it did in November and March.
Cardano Open Interest
Further confirming a potential Cardano price bull run is the fact that the funding rate has turned positive. It has jumped to 0.65, a sign that long position holders are paying a small fee to those predicting that it will fall. A positive figure provides a good ADA price forecast.
Cardano Funding Rate
ADA Price Technical Analysis: Break and Retest Hints of a Bull Run
Cardano price is also exhibiting bullish technicals. The daily chart shows that the coin has formed an inverse head and shoulders pattern, a popular bullish reversal sign.
ADA price also formed a large falling wedge pattern, which is shown in red in the chart below. This pattern occurs when there are two falling and converging trendlines. These lines are drawn by linking the lower lows and higher lows in a certain period. Cardano has now moved above the upper side of the wedge. After doing this, it has retested that trendline, confirming a potential breakout.
On top of this, it created a double-bottom pattern at $0.5212, with a neckline is at $1.1705. Therefore, the most likely ADA price forecast is where it surges and reaches the resistance at $1.1705, up by 67% from the current level.
Cardano price chart
A drop below the double-bottom pattern at $0.5212 will cancel the bullish outlook. It will also risk the coin dropping to $0.2761, its lowest level last year.
Raydium launched its LaunchLab on April 17, 2025. Within five days, Raydium LaunchLab generated 3,787 tokens, achieving a “graduated rate” of 1.14%.
This article analyzes Raydium LaunchLab’s performance, compares it with competitors, and provides a comprehensive overview of the ongoing meme coin launchpad war.
According to Dune data, Raydium LaunchLab created 3,787 tokens in its first week, achieving a “graduation rate” of 1.14%. This rate is based on the number of tokens reaching a threshold of 85 SOL (approximately $11,150) to transition to trading on Raydium’s Automated Market Maker (AMM).
While these figures reflect a promising debut, Raydium LaunchLab still trails behind Pump.fun. The pioneering Solana-based platform, Pump.fun, boasts an average daily graduation rate of 1.13%—slightly lower than LaunchLab’s.
Moreover, Pump.fun has had a longer runway to build its community and refine its processes, and created over 600,000 tokens in January 2025. This shows Pump.fun’s continued dominance, even as Raydium LaunchLab exerts significant competitive pressure.
Meme Coin Launchpad War
Beyond Raydium LaunchLab and Pump.fun, the meme coin launchpad war includes other platforms like SunPump (Tron), Dgen.fun (Aptos), or Auto.fun. However, their performance remains modest.
Per Dune Analytics, SunPump has created only eight tokens today, while Dgen.fun has generated 21. These numbers indicate that neither platform can yet compete with Raydium LaunchLab or Pump.fun’s scale.
Despite backing from Justin Sun and the Tron ecosystem, SunPump struggles to attract users. This may partly stem from Tron’s weaker appeal to the meme coin community than Solana. Similarly, Dgen.fun has yet to make a significant impact, likely due to Aptos being a relatively new blockchain with a smaller community to drive meme coin development.
Key Factors Behind LaunchLab’s Appeal
Raydium LaunchLab boasts several competitive advantages. First, the platform allows free token creation, offering features like customizable bonding curves and no migration fees. Once a token reaches the 85 SOL threshold, it automatically transitions to Raydium’s AMM, ensuring immediate liquidity.
Additionally, Raydium imposes a 1% transaction fee, of which 25% is allocated to buy back RAY tokens—a move designed to boost the value of its native token.
Following the LaunchLab announcement, RAY’s price surged nearly 15%, reaching $2.41 before settling at $2.21. This reflects strong community optimism about LaunchLab’s potential. However, to surpass Pump.fun, Raydium must improve its graduation rate and attract more users, particularly as Pump.fun has built credibility with its simple, transparent mechanism.
The meme coin launchpad war is not solely about the number of tokens created—it’s a battle of technology, community, and sustainability. Pump.fun remains the leader, thanks to its first-mover advantage and massive scale. However, Raydium LaunchLab is emerging as a formidable contender, backed by the Solana ecosystem, renowned for its fast transaction speeds and low costs.
As the competition intensifies, Raydium LaunchLab’s ability to innovate and grow its user base will be critical in challenging Pump.fun’s dominance in the meme coin launchpad arena.
