Ex-Pump.fun Dev Behind $2M Theft Jailed in London for Bail Breach, Faces 7+ Years Prison

2025/07/19 03:47

Former Pump.fun senior developer Jarett Dunn sits in a London prison after breaching his bail conditions while awaiting trial for stealing approximately $2 million from the launchpad in May 2024, according to reports.

The Canadian national, who had initially pleaded guilty to fraud charges, is now attempting to withdraw his plea and faces at least seven years in prison.

His detention comes as his former employer has transformed into one of crypto’s most successful platforms, recently completing a $600 million initial coin offering and surpassing $770 million in lifetime revenue.

The Theft and Its Aftermath

Dunn’s attack on Pump.fun occurred during his brief six-week employment with the company in May 2024, when he exploited his access to private keys to drain funds from bonding curve contracts.

The stolen SOL tokens, worth approximately $2 million, were intended for transfer to the Raydium decentralized exchange, but were instead diverted to unrelated wallet addresses.

Rather than keeping the funds, Dunn immediately began airdropping the stolen tokens to random wallet addresses, selecting holders of various Solana tokens and NFTs as unwitting recipients. His actions prompted Pump.fun to temporarily shut down its platform while it investigated the breach and cooperated with law enforcement.

Within minutes of the exploit, Dunn claimed responsibility through his Twitter account, posting erratically about his actions and motivations.

“Everybody be cool, this is robbery,” he wrote, adding that he was “about to change the course of history” and expected to “rot in jail.”

During a Twitter Spaces session immediately following the attack, Dunn expressed his disdain for the platform he had targeted.

“I just kind of wanted to kill Pump.fun because it’s something to do,” he stated, claiming the platform had “inadvertently hurt people for a long time.”

He described the company as “horribly managed” and said he had “personal grievances” against its leadership.

Dunn initially pleaded guilty to fraud charges in October 2024, but requested to withdraw his plea during what was scheduled to be his sentencing hearing. His legal team subsequently quit the case, leaving him to handle the complex legal proceedings while living in London under bail conditions that included movement restrictions and electronic monitoring.

The breach of his bail conditions occurred in early June 2025 when Dunn moved from London to Liverpool without authorization, violating the terms of his release.

He was subsequently arrested and held at Walton Prison in Liverpool before being transferred to HMP Pentonville in London, where he remains on remand, awaiting a formal hearing to withdraw his guilty plea.

His friend Mark Kelly, who has been communicating with Dunn through calls from behind bars, confirmed details of the bail breach to media outlets.

“He’s remarkably cool and zenlike considering his situation,” Kelly said.

The Growing Epidemic of Crypto Insider Attacks

Dunn’s case contributes to a growing trend of insider threats within the cryptocurrency industry, where employees with privileged access exploit their positions for personal gain or ideological reasons.

Recent incidents include Coinbase rejecting a $20 million ransom demand in May 2025 after overseas support staff were bribed to leak user data, and Pond.fun suffering a hack in March 2025, allegedly perpetrated by its own lead software engineer who drained liquidity through blockchain privacy protocols.

South Korea also recently sentenced an illegal XRP exchange operator to eight years in prison for defrauding investors of $3.4 million.

Since Dunn’s attack, the platform has evolved from operating out of a WeWork office in London to become what analysts describe as “one of the most used apps in crypto history.”

Despite the success of Pump.fun, it has also been continually criticized for allegedly facilitating pump-and-dump schemes and questionable promotional tactics.

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CryptoNews2025/07/19 05:45