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IntermediateLesson 4 of 7 · 4 min read

Bundles, snipers, fresh wallets and KOLs

The earliest buyers decide a coin's first hours. How to spot bundled launches, snipers, fresh wallets and influencer buys.

On this page
  1. Bundles
  2. Snipers
  3. Fresh wallets
  4. KOL buys
  5. Quiz

The first seconds of a coin are the most crowded. Before you have even seen it, bots and well-connected wallets have bought, and many of them plan to sell to you. These four labels tell you who got there first and whether they are still waiting.

Bundles

A bundle is a small group of transactions sent together so they land in the same block, in a fixed order, all or nothing. On Solana anyone can send one by paying a small tip. Launchers use them to create a coin and buy it from many wallets in the very same instant, before anyone else has a chance.

Traders call a launch 'bundled' whenever many wallets bought in the same block the coin was created, whether that took one bundle or several.

Why buy from twenty wallets instead of one? Because one wallet with 25% of the supply scares buyers away, while twenty wallets with 1.25% each look like a crowd. The bundle hides concentration. When the price is high enough, those wallets sell, often all together.

How a bundle worksOne funder wallet sends SOL to five fresh wallets. All five buy the coin in the same launch block, so it looks like five separate buyers when it is really one person holding a big share. Below, a price chart: other people buy in and the price rises, then the bundle sells all at once and the price drops hard.One fundersends SOL outW1W2W3W4W5Launch block: all five buy at onceLooks like five buyers. It is one person.LaterOthers buy inBundle sellsall at once
One funder splits SOL across many wallets, and they all buy in the same block as the launch.

How to spot one: terminals like Axiom and GMGN show the share of supply held by bundled wallets. On Bubblemaps the same wallets often show up as one coloured cluster joined by transfer lines. On a block explorer you see many buys in the same block as the coin's creation, often for near-identical amounts.

Snipers

Snipers are bots that buy a coin in its first few blocks, often within a second of launch. Some snipe almost every new coin, others only coins from devs or names they like. They buy at the lowest prices the coin will ever have, so they sit on the biggest profits and can sell into the first wave of real buyers.

A sniper's timelineA price line over four phases after a launch. In block zero, the very first moment, snipers buy. In the next seconds early buyers arrive. Over the next minutes the crowd piles in and pushes the price up. Then the snipers sell into the crowd and the price falls.PriceBlock 0Snipersbuy firstSecondsEarlybuyersMinutesThe crowdpiles inThenSnipers sellto the crowd
Snipers buy in the first blocks. Real buyers arrive later at higher prices, and the snipers sell to them.

The question is not only how many snipers there were. It is whether they still hold. Terminals show the share snipers bought, and their holder lists show each wallet's buys, sells and what it still holds, so you can see which snipers have already left. Snipers who already sold are gone and their selling is done. Snipers still holding a big share are a wall of sell orders waiting above you.

Example

Two coins with the same sniper count

Both coins had 15 snipers buy in the first two blocks, taking 18% of the supply.

  1. Step 1: Coin A: 13 of the snipers have sold. Together the snipers now hold 2%.
  2. Step 2: Coin B: only 2 have sold. The snipers still hold 16%.
  3. Step 3: Coin A has already been through its sniper dump. Coin B has not, and every buyer from here on is someone the snipers can sell to.

Fresh wallets

A fresh wallet is a new one: created recently, with few or no earlier transactions, often funded minutes before it buys. When many fresh wallets buy the same coin, it can mean one person spread their buying across wallets to look like a crowd.

Not always, though. Some social trading apps set up a new wallet for every person who signs up, so a coin popular with brand-new users can show lots of fresh wallets for an honest reason. Look at where the wallets got their SOL. Fifty fresh wallets funded from fifty different places are people. Fifty funded by one address in the same minute are one person.

KOL buys

KOL stands for key opinion leader: a trader or influencer with a following. Tools like GMGN and Kolscan label known KOL wallets, so you can see when one buys. A KOL buy can bring a wave of followers behind it, which is why so many people watch them.

It cuts both ways. You only see a KOL's buy after it happens, at a higher price than they paid. A KOL post can be a paid ad that does not say so, and the KOL can sell into the very buying their post creates. A KOL can also trade from a second wallet that no tool has labelled. So check what the KOL did after buying, not just that they bought.

Check what you learned

0 of 4 answered

  1. Question 1Why would a launcher buy from 20 wallets in a bundle instead of from one wallet?
  2. Question 2Coin A's snipers have sold almost everything. Coin B's snipers still hold 25%. Which coin has more sniper selling still to come?
  3. Question 3Tricky40% of a coin's holders are fresh wallets. What is the right conclusion?
  4. Question 4TrickyA KOL posts about a coin at a $500,000 market cap. Their wallet bought at $50,000. What should you assume?

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This guide is for learning. It is not financial advice. Most memecoins go to zero and most people who trade them lose money. Only ever trade what you can afford to lose.