The problem
Holders sell for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with the coin: rent, a better entry somewhere else, a short-term need for SOL. On a bonding curve every one of those sells prints a red candle for everyone who stays, and the seller loses their spot for good.
The pawn vault
When a coin launches through PAWN, its pump.fun creator fees are split on chain: 60% to the coin's pawn vault, 30% to the creator, 10% to PAWN. A keeper cranks the fees into the vault every few minutes. The creator can seed the vault at launch so holders can pawn from day one, and picks the loan rate: 10 to 30% of a bag's live value.
A pawn
You ask for a quote: the loan is your tokens times the live price (the curve, or the PumpSwap pool once the coin graduated) times the loan rate. The quote holds for 60 seconds and shows what redeeming will cost and when the ticket is due. You sign one transfer of your tokens into the vault and the server verifies it on chain. The price and the vault's limits are checked again; within the 1% slippage guard the vault sends your locked loan in SOL. You get a pawn ticket with a live countdown.
Redeem, extend, or forfeit
Any time within 7 days you can redeem from the ticket page: one SOL transfer of the loan plus 5%, and the vault releases exactly your tokens. Need longer? Extend once by 7 days for 5% of the loan. If the ticket is not redeemed by due, the tokens are forfeited and the vault burns them. You keep the loan; the vault's loss is the loan, and the supply goes down for every holder.
Limits and the 70% cap
The vault never lends more than 70% of its capital (cash plus SOL lent out), so it always keeps 30% in cash. Each wallet can borrow up to 5% of vault capital per day on a coin. Keeper caps limit each loan and each day. A request over a limit is refused at quote time with the most you can borrow right now.
Custody and caps
Each coin's vault is held by the PAWN keeper. Its key is encrypted at rest (AES-256-GCM) and opened only for one signature at a time. Every transaction the keeper signs goes through a guard: an allowlist of programs per transaction type, exact transfers, burns and memos, per-loan and daily caps, and an execution switch (auto, review or off) an operator can tighten at any time, plus a per-coin pause.
Loans, releases, burns, returns and refunds are idempotent: each is recorded before it is sent, and before any resend the keeper checks the chain for its memo, so nothing is paid twice. Deposits and redemptions that a holder never reported are found by their memo on the vault's history before a ticket is forfeited.
What PAWN does not do
It is a creator-fee-funded vault feature, not a bank and not credit. It does not set or support a price and it does not promise a loan: pawn loans come from creator fees while vault capacity lasts, and unredeemed bags are burned. Memecoins can go to zero. Nothing here is financial advice. PAWN is not affiliated with pump.fun.