Judge Admits 5,000 Internal Logs in $5.5B Pump.fun RICO Case

The Black Box Cracks Open

The class-action lawsuit against Pump.fun has escalated from a civil dispute into a potential criminal exposure event for the entire Solana ecosystem. In a ruling filed Dec. 9 in the Southern District of New York, Judge Colleen McMahon granted plaintiffs permission to file a Second Amended Complaint incorporating over 5,000 internal chat logs provided by a confidential informant.

This is no longer just about retail losses. The introduction of these logs, allegedly detailing coordination between Pump.fun, Jito Labs, and the Solana Foundation, substantiates the plaintiffs’ RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) claims. The lawsuit now categorizes these entities not as service providers, but as a "Crypto Crime Cartel" that engineered a $5.5 billion wealth transfer from retail traders to insiders.

Solana (SOL) reacted nervously to the infrastructure-level risk, slipping 5.3% to trade around $126 as the legal scope widened.

The "Confidential Informant"

The turning point was the resurfacing of a whistleblower in September 2025. Previously unreachable, this informant provided counsel with contemporaneous communications that reportedly strip away the "fair launch" marketing veneer of the Pump.fun platform.

According to court filings in Aguilar v. Baton Corp., these logs contain specific discussions on:

• Validator Coordination: How transaction ordering may have been manipulated at the protocol level.
• MEV Weaponization: The alleged use of Jito Labs’ priority execution tools to allow insiders to front-run retail buys before bonding curves spiked.
• Systemic Extraction: Evidence that the "casino" was rigged by the house (infrastructure providers) rather than just being a neutral platform for gambling.

"What appeared to be a fair, automated marketplace was, Plaintiffs say, structurally tilted to extract value from ordinary users while rewarding those with privileged access."

Infrastructure on Trial

The danger for Solana lies in the specific targeting of its architectural pillars. Unlike typical securities suits that target token issuers, this complaint alleges that the Solana Foundation and Jito Labs (whose governance token JTO dropped 7.4%) were active participants in the scheme.

The plaintiffs argue that high-throughput features and MEV (Maximal Extractable Value) tools were knowingly optimized to facilitate this extraction. If the RICO count holds, the defendants could face mandatory treble damages, potentially ballooning the liability to over $16.5 billion.

Judge McMahon’s decision to admit the logs rejects the defendants’ attempts to dismiss the motion on technical grounds, signaling that the court views the new evidence as materially relevant to the "operation and management" of the alleged enterprise. The defense now faces a discovery phase where those 5,000 messages will likely become public record.