When to buy after a pump.fun takeover: the first hour, measured
Updated 11 October 2026 · by AtroX · Belphor Research · the data behind this guide
As of 3 October 2026, buying at the moment of the alert reached +50% on 50% of the 12 pump.fun takeovers in Belphor's 45-day entry-timing record, buying 30 minutes later on 42% and buying 60 minutes later on 25%. Twelve takeovers are too few for the record to separate any of these entries from another, so the honest answer today is that waiting has not been shown to help or to hurt.
- The sample is 12 takeovers with at least 30 minute-level observations within 36 hours after the alert, in the 45 days to 3 October 2026; no comparison on this page passes the house rule of at least 30 on each side.
- At the alert: 50% reached +50%, the median peak was 1.42x, and 25% were down 80% or more at the end of 36 hours.
- The median peak fell from 1.42x at the alert to 1.33x at 60 minutes on the same 12 coins: too few to call it the cost of waiting, enough to keep measuring.
- A bid resting 10% to 25% under the alert filled on 8.3% to 25% of signals; a bid that never fills costs nothing and buys nothing.
Why the first hour is the question
A takeover executes in one transaction, and the attention it draws arrives over the following minutes and hours. A buyer has two instincts pulling in opposite directions: enter at the first print, before the crowd, or wait until the coin has shown it will hold, and pay a higher price for the information. Both instincts can be measured on takeovers with at least 30 minute-level observations within the 36 hours after the alert.
Buy now or wait
| Entry | Trades | Share of signals | Reached +50% | Reached +100% | Median peak | Average peak | Down 80% or more |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buy at the alert | 12 | 100% | 50% | 25% | 1.42x | +196.6% | 25% |
| Buy 30 minutes after the alert | 12 | 100% | 42% | 25% | 1.40x | +192.4% | 17% |
| Buy 60 minutes after the alert | 12 | 100% | 25% | 17% | 1.33x | +174.3% | 8.3% |
| Buy at 60 minutes only if the coin held within 15% | 8 | 67% | 38% | 25% | 1.33x | +247.1% | too few readings |
Fetched from the public JSON on 3 October 2026. The live table refreshes daily; this article is a dated snapshot of it. How each column is measured: how Belphor measures outcomes.
Each variant is measured from its own entry price, and "down 80% or more" is the last reading of the 36-hour window at 20% of that entry price or lower. Read down the first three rows and the median peak falls from 1.42x to 1.40x to 1.33x. The share down 80% or more falls too, from 25% to 17% to 8.3%, on the same twelve coins.
The average peak is far above the median (+196.6% against 1.42x at the alert) because a few large runs pull the average up. A typical takeover looks like the median, not the average.
None of these rows is far enough apart, on enough takeovers, to call one entry better. Belphor's pages compare two rows in words only when both hold at least 30 takeovers and differ by more than two points; at 12 takeovers the honest reading is "not separated yet".
Waiting for confirmation
The fourth row is the confirmation entry: wait 60 minutes and buy only if the coin never traded more than 15% under the alert price in that hour. 67% of takeovers qualified (8 of 12), and from the 60-minute price 38% of them went on to reach +50%. The same split, measured from the alert price:
| First hour | Takeovers | Share | Reached +50% | Reached +100% | Median peak | Down 80% or more |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Held within 15% in the first hour | 8 | 67% | 63% | 38% | 1.54x | too few readings |
| Dipped more than 15% in the first hour | 4 | 33% | 25% | 0.0% | 1.17x | too few readings |
The displayed peak outcomes differ between these groups of eight and four coins, which are too small for this guide to compare, but a buyer only knows which group a coin is in at minute 60, and buying then means paying the minute-60 price. That is why the confirmation row, not this table, is the one to compare with buying at the alert.
Bidding below the alert
| Bid | Fills | Fill rate | Reached +50% | Reached +100% | Median peak | Down 80% or more |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bid 10% under, 1 hour window | 2 | 17% | 50% | 0.0% | 1.41x | too few readings |
| Bid 15% under, 1 hour window | 1 | 8.3% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1.18x | too few readings |
| Bid 25% under, 1 hour window | 1 | 8.3% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1.00x | too few readings |
| Bid 15% under, 3 hour window | 3 | 25% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1.18x | too few readings |
| Bid 25% under, 3 hour window | 2 | 17% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1.06x | too few readings |
A bid fills the first time the coin trades at or under the bid price inside its window, and the peak is measured from the fill. Unfilled bids cost nothing and are not counted. Fills came on 8.3% to 25% of signals. With one to three fills per depth, the outcome after a fill cannot be judged yet; what the table does show is how rarely a dip deep enough to fill arrived at all.
What this means for an entry rule
Twelve takeovers prove no rule. What they do show is the trade-off the record will test as it grows: a later entry pays a later price, and a lower bid mostly does not fill. An entry rule should be chosen before the alert, sized so one bad fill is survivable (position sizing), and paired with an exit decided in advance (stop losses for memecoins). The base rate this all starts from is in how often a pump.fun takeover reaches +50%.
Should you buy a CTO at the alert, wait, or bid below it? The live table behind this guide, recomputed daily, with its JSON and CSV twins. Also measured: how often takeovers succeed and how long until they peak.
Frequently asked
Should you buy a pump.fun CTO immediately or wait?
Belphor's record does not separate them yet. As of 3 October 2026, buying at the alert reached +50% on 50% of 12 takeovers, buying 30 minutes later on 42% and 60 minutes later on 25%. With 12 takeovers, none of those differences is large enough to rely on.
Does buying the dip after a CTO work?
A bid resting 10% to 25% under the alert price filled on 8.3% to 25% of the 12 takeovers, 1 to 3 fills per depth. That is too few fills to judge what happened after them; most of the time the bid simply never filled.
Why is the sample only 12 takeovers?
The entry-timing table needs at least 30 minute-level observations within the 36 hours after each alert, in a 45-day window, and 74 takeovers in that window lack them. pump.fun also replaced its takeover instruction on 12 September 2026, and takeovers under the new one were not counted until 11 October 2026, so the sample grows again from then.
pump.fun replaced the takeover instruction on 12 September 2026. Belphor recorded the new instruction, admin_cto, unpromoted while it was measured against the old record (n 38: 47 percent reached +50 percent against 48 to 54 under the earlier instruction; 21 percent were down 80 percent or more against 18 to 21). From 11 October 2026 its new-creator form is alerted and counted as a takeover, behind liquidity, mint-safety and operator gates. Holder-reward events are recorded as their own type and are not takeovers.
Belphor records pump.fun takeovers on-chain, scores each signal 0 to 100 and publishes measured outcomes with their sample sizes, windows and missing readings. Reflex Bot is coming soon and priced separately. The tables in this guide come from that record.
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