Pump and dump
Etymology
A longstanding term of securities fraud, describing artificially "pumping" up a stock’s price through false or exaggerated promotion, then "dumping" the shares. The phrase spread far beyond regulated markets with penny stocks and, later, cryptocurrencies and meme coins, where such schemes are rampant.
noun · /PUMP and dump/
A scheme that inflates an asset’s price with hype, then sells off at the peak onto the people the hype lured in.
What it names
It names a specific manipulation: the value isn’t discovered but manufactured, and the profit comes from getting out just as the newcomers get in and the price collapses.
Example
The coin tripled on hype in a day, the founders cashed out, and it cratered — a textbook pump and dump.
Related idea
Overlaps with a rug pull, but a rug pull is the abrupt abandonment of a project, while a pump and dump specifically works by inflating the price first, then selling.
See also