Who is Kimchi? The memecoin trader pump.fun signed
Kimchi is a pseudonymous Solana memecoin trader who posts as @kimchi1x on X. He became known for saying he made about $40 million trading the official $TRUMP coin in January 2025, a figure no public wallet has backed up so far. On 20 October 2026, pump.fun co-founder Alon Cohen announced that Kimchi had joined pump.fun to help shape its creative direction. The same night a coin called $KIMCHI reached a market cap of about $44 million within its first hour.
This page collects what is known about him, separates what the blockchain shows from what has only been claimed, and links every source.
Kimchi at a glance
| Handle | @kimchi1x on X, account opened in May 2019, about 209,000 followers on 21 October 2026 |
|---|---|
| Real name | Not public. The Defiant tried and could not identify him. |
| Trading since | April 2024, by his own account |
| Known for | A claimed profit of about $40 million on $TRUMP. "One Kimchi" became trader slang for $40 million. |
| Role at pump.fun | Creative partner since 20 October 2026. The terms are not public. |
| His coin | $KIMCHI, launched on pump.fun on 20 October 2026. 75 % of its supply sits in a wallet that pump.fun labels "Kimchi". |
The $TRUMP trade: claimed, not shown
Kimchi's reputation goes back to January 2025. In an in-person interview with the trader Orangie on 14 January 2025 he said he scanned the chain about fifteen hours a day and would stop once he reached eight figures. Days later the official $TRUMP coin launched, and the story spread that he had made $40 to $50 million on it. Some outlets have since repeated even larger numbers.
What is missing is a wallet. He has never published one, so nobody outside can see the entry, the exit or the size. X added Community Notes to both pump.fun's ad and Alon Cohen's announcement saying that the $TRUMP profit has no public wallet verification. On 22 October 2026 Bubblemaps reportedly traced his real $TRUMP profit to about $6 million. We have not seen that analysis ourselves, and Kimchi has not confirmed or disputed any of the figures.
A profit-and-loss screenshot shows a number on a screen. A wallet shows the trades behind it. Until a wallet is public, the $40 million is a claim.
Kimchi joins pump.fun
On 20 October 2026 Alon Cohen announced on X that Kimchi would help set the creative direction of a social trading platform aimed at people outside Crypto Twitter. The post carried a paid partnership label. Kimchi changed his X bio to "@pumpfun" the same day, and in his first vlog he said he had also invested in pump.fun. The size and terms of that investment were not published, and posts claiming he was paid $6.5 million to join are unconfirmed.
Around the announcement, wallets linked to Kimchi received about 1.35 billion $PUMP tokens from a Binance hot wallet, worth roughly $6.9 million on 21 October. Pump.fun then ran ads telling users to "be the next kimchi", and its ecosystem account said he had made $32 million on pump.fun thirty minutes after joining.
What is Kimchi's net worth?
Nobody outside knows. Two numbers circulate, and neither is a net worth:
- $40 million from $TRUMP. Unverified, as above.
- $32 million "made on pump.fun". This is the quoted value of the 750 million $KIMCHI tokens in the wallet labelled Kimchi, which have not been sold. On 22 October at 23:40 UTC that wallet still held all 750 million, quoted at about $9.1 million, while every $KIMCHI pool together held only about 4,360 SOL, roughly $450,000. A position cannot be sold for more than the pools can pay. What the on-chain data shows about $KIMCHI works through the numbers.
What happened next: Project Kimchi
On 22 October 2026, two days after the signing, Kimchi's X account posted a photo of a poster on a Manhattan sidewalk with a QR code and app store badges. It pointed to a new coin, "Project Kimchi", which reached a market cap of about $15.2 million within minutes and then fell by more than 98 %. The post was deleted after about thirty minutes. Crypto Twitter called it a hack; neither Kimchi nor pump.fun has said so. Alon Cohen had reposted it and removed the repost after the original was deleted. According to AirdropAlert, Kimchi then removed "@pumpfun" from his bio and deleted his earlier pump.fun posts and his vlog. No refund for buyers has been announced.
How to check any trader's track record
Kimchi's story is unusual in size, not in kind. Memecoin trading runs on claims, and most of them cannot be checked. Five questions sort the checkable ones from the rest:
- Is there a wallet? Without one, a profit is a story. With one, you can open every trade on Solscan.
- Is the profit realised? Tokens that were never sold are a quote. What counts is the SOL that came out.
- When did the buys happen? A buy seconds before a large account posts about a coin is a different skill from reading a chart.
- Could the position be sold? Compare its size with the SOL in the coin's pools.
- Is the post paid? A paid partnership is an ad, however it reads.
A record nobody has to take on trust
At Bonded Capital the trading itself is the record. Every order in a challenge fills at a real pump.fun trade that you can open on Solscan, the rules are published in full, and every payout leaves one public Solana wallet with a memo that names it. Profits that come from a callout wave or a single wallet pushing a coin do not count, so a funded account shows trading skill and nothing else. Verify it explains how to check each claim we make, and why callout profits don't count explains the rule.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Kimchi in crypto?
Kimchi is a pseudonymous Solana memecoin trader who posts as @kimchi1x on X. He is known for a claimed profit of about $40 million on the $TRUMP coin in January 2025, and pump.fun announced him as a creative partner on 20 October 2026.
What is Kimchi's real name?
His real name is not public. The Defiant tried to identify him and found no other public name.
How much did Kimchi make on $TRUMP?
He is said to have made $40 to $50 million, but he has never published the wallet, so the figure cannot be checked. On 22 October 2026 Bubblemaps reportedly put his real $TRUMP profit at about $6 million.
What is Kimchi's net worth?
Unknown. The $40 million $TRUMP figure is unverified, and the $32 million pump.fun cited is the unsold paper value of 750 million $KIMCHI tokens, which on 22 October were quoted at about $9.1 million while all $KIMCHI pools held about $450,000 in SOL.
Is Kimchi working with pump.fun?
Pump.fun co-founder Alon Cohen announced on 20 October 2026 that Kimchi would help shape pump.fun's creative direction, in a post labelled as a paid partnership. Kimchi said he had invested in pump.fun. The terms are not public, and after the Project Kimchi post on 22 October he reportedly removed @pumpfun from his bio.
Did Kimchi create the $KIMCHI coin?
The coin was created by a separate wallet that was about three hours old, which then sent 75 % of the supply to a wallet pump.fun labels Kimchi and set it as the receiver of all creator fees. Nothing on chain shows who controls either wallet.
What is Project Kimchi?
A second coin promoted by a post on Kimchi's X account on 22 October 2026. It reached about $15.2 million within minutes and fell by more than 98 %. The post was deleted after about thirty minutes and was called a hack on Crypto Twitter, which neither Kimchi nor pump.fun has confirmed.
Sources
- The Defiant via cryptonews.net: A wallet three hours old minted Kimchi's coin and routed every fee to one address (21 Oct 2026)
- Crypto Briefing: Pump.fun's Kimchi coin routes every creator fee to one address
- The Crypto Times: Pump.fun taps meme coin trader Kimchi for creative role amid scrutiny (21 Oct 2026)
- Phemex News: Pump.fun faces backlash as on-chain records reveal suspect timing in Kimchi memecoin launch
- SolanaFloor: $KIMCHI hits $44M ATH after Kimchi joins Pump.fun
- AirdropAlert: Who is Kimchi? The $40M TRUMP trader Pump.fun just signed
- AirdropAlert: Kimchi hacked? Project Kimchi (22 Oct 2026)
- DEX Screener: $KIMCHI pools
Bonded Capital is not affiliated with pump.fun or with Kimchi. Facts as reported up to 23 October 2026; market data from DEX Screener and a public Solana node on 22 October 2026 at 23:40 UTC. Nothing here is investment advice.
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