A user operating under the alias Arivu carried out the newly launched Pump.fun GO bounty task by tattooing the misspelled token ticker “$boutywork” on his forehead and uploading a video. The typo was immediately issued on the Solana chain as the meme coin BOUTYWORK. Its market cap briefly exceeded $600,000, with 24-hour trading volume over $3.5 million, and 2,630 holder addresses.
Other Pump.fun GO controversial bounty tasks found by CoinDesk
CoinDesk found the following open bounty tasks on the Pump.fun GO platform:
Skid Row street interview: About $663 in bounty, requiring participants to go to Los Angeles’ Skid Row (known for large numbers of homeless people, drug markets, and extreme poverty across 50 blocks) and interview two street residents on camera to ask about their voting intentions
Alcohol challenge: Participants are required to promote a certain token while downing an entire bottle of liquor; multiple user videos have already appeared showing people finishing a full bottle within about a minute
Watermelon challenge: About $93 in bounty, requiring participants to eat a watermelon within 60 seconds
How Pump.fun GO works and profit distribution
Pump.fun GO allows anyone to create and post bounties of almost any type; its official positioning is “paying anyone to do anything.” Arivu’s case reveals the actual profit-sharing structure: the person who carried out the task received $20,000, while the creators and early investors who issued the BOUTYWORK token around this event profited tens of times to even hundreds of times as the market cap surged.
On X, some users claim they have contacted the tattoo shop where Arivu works, questioning whether Arivu may have been used by another group that tried to profit from the token’s sudden price surge. CoinDesk attempted to call the tattoo shop twice, but nobody answered. Pump.fun said the platform has an active moderation team that would take down dark or malicious content, but it has not yet provided a specific response to this incident.
FAQ
What are the market data for the BOUTYWORK token?
According to reports, after BOUTYWORK was issued on the Solana chain, its market cap briefly exceeded $600,000, 24-hour trading volume surpassed $3.5 million, and the number of holder addresses reached 2,630. The token issuer and early traders profited tens to hundreds of times as the market cap surged.
How much compensation did Arivu ultimately get from this incident?
In an X post, Arivu said that after someone issued a token tied to this incident, he was paid about $20,000, calling it “a life-changing thing.” The payment did not come from Pump.fun or the original bounty poster, but from the users who used the incident to issue the token.
What is Pump.fun’s official position on this controversy?
As of the time of the report, Pump.fun had not commented on Arivu’s forehead tattoo incident. Pump.fun previously stated that the platform has an active moderation team that would remove dark or malicious content, but critics say the moderation system’s response speed has repeatedly lagged behind the pace at which the controversy spreads.
