Meet Y Combinator’s memecoin bet that made $10M last week

Throughout much of the memecoin-fueled boom in Solana application revenue, the leaderboard has looked like this: pump.fun, Phantom, and an established group of so-called trading bots. 

That stasis broke in recent weeks as a new competitor quietly climbed the ranks. Axiom, an online trading platform combining trading bot capabilities with Hyperliquid’s perpetual futures product, is now solidly in second place behind pump.fun in terms of Solana app revenue.

Last week, pump.fun saw $12.2 million in revenue, while Axiom was close behind with around $10.5 million, according to Blockworks Research. Phantom, with around $4.3 million, was a semi-distant third. 

Axiom was co-founded by a pair of 22-year-old UC San Diego graduates, Henry Zhang and Preston Ellis. The computer science majors “had nothing really to do” in college, but they were both into crypto trading, so they built a couple of projects in their free time, Zhang told me. 

Ellis was finishing up college, and Zhang was just starting as a software engineer at TikTok when the Solana memecoin craze began taking off. The pair decided to try building a platform that could rival the trading bot of choice, Photon. They built an initial product in mid-2024 and were selected into the winter batch for Y Combinator, the prestigious startup accelerator that counts Airbnb, Coinbase and Reddit as alumni. Zhang and Ellis said Y Combinator connected them with Jordan Fish, the crypto entrepreneur and online personality known as Cobie on X, who offered them advice — including that they should avoid opening up the checkbook for key opinion leaders (KOLs).

Trading bots are kind of like souped-up DEX aggregators that specialize in quickly and successfully landing crypto transactions. They’re popular among users for things like sniping — a term for buying up memecoins right after they are created — and tracking new token launches. Many are built on Telegram, although Axiom is only a web app.

It’s a crowded field, but Axiom has separated itself from the pack in recent weeks. In late February, the trading bots Photon, BullX, and Trojan combined for around 75% of Solana trading bot volume, according to a Dune dashboard. Today, Axiom has more than 50% of market share by itself.

Why does Axiom command so much revenue? Blockworks Research analyst Danny Knettel told Donovan Choy of the 0xResearch newsletter that Axiom’s secret sauce was combining the two most popular trading products of the moment — Solana memecoins and Hyperliquid perpetual futures. Knettel told me he’s heard rumors that other crypto teams are considering merging these two product offerings as well.

Zhang said Axiom’s rakeback program, where power users are given claimable fee rebates as opposed to the tier-based fee system on venues like Binance, is popular among users as well.

Then, of course, Axiom is running a points program, which tends to spur a short-term increase in usage. For what it’s worth, Zhang and Ellis told me they have no plans of launching a token — which tends to be the key ingredient in airdrop farming. 

The pair also said they won’t be raising additional venture funding following Y Combinator’s seed check, as the business is already quite profitable.