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IntermediateLesson 3 of 7 · 3 min read

Holders, the top 10 and the dev

Who owns the supply decides who can crash the price. How to read the holder count, the top 10 and the dev's wallet.

On this page
  1. The holder count
  2. The top 10
  3. The dev's wallet
  4. The dev's history
  5. Insiders
  6. Quiz

Every token sits in a wallet somewhere. If a few wallets hold most of the supply, those few decide the price. Before you buy, you want to know who they are and what they are likely to do.

The holder count

The holder count is how many wallets hold any amount of the coin. More is usually better, and a count that keeps climbing is a healthy sign. But one person can run hundreds of wallets, so the count can be inflated. Treat it as a clue, never as proof.

The top 10

The top 10 figure is the share of supply held by the ten largest wallets. It is the fastest way to see concentration. If ten wallets hold 60%, ten sells could wipe out the chart.

One catch trips up almost everyone. The pool, or the bonding curve before graduation, holds tokens too, and on a block explorer it often shows up as the biggest holder of all. That is not a person. Good tools label it or leave it out of the top 10 figure. Burn addresses and exchange wallets are similar: they appear as holders but are not traders waiting to sell.

Top 10 holders: spread out versus concentratedTwo example bar charts of the ten biggest holders of a coin. On the left, spread out: the biggest holder has 3 percent and the top ten together hold 16 percent, so no one wallet can crash the price alone. On the right, concentrated: the biggest holder has 22 percent and the top ten hold 70 percent, so a few wallets can dump on everyone else. Example numbers; the pool is not counted.Spread outTop 10 hold 16%13%22.5%32%41.8%51.5%61.4%71.2%81.1%90.8%100.7%ConcentratedTop 10 hold 70%122%214%39%46%55%64%73%83%92%102%Example numbers. The pool is not counted.
Two coins with the same market cap. On the left the supply is spread over many wallets. On the right a few wallets own most of it and can sell into everyone else.
Example

Reading a holders list

You open the holders tab of a coin and see this.

  1. Step 1: Number 1 holds 38% and is labelled as the bonding curve, because this coin has not graduated yet. Not a person, so set it aside.
  2. Step 2: Numbers 2 to 11 hold 4.1%, 3.8%, 3.5%, 2.9%, 2.2%, 1.9%, 1.8%, 1.6%, 1.5% and 1.4%. Together that is 24.7%.
  3. Step 3: So the real top 10 is about 25% of supply, and no single wallet holds more than about 4%. On its own, that spread looks fine.
  4. Step 4: Now the question changes from how much to who. If numbers 2, 3 and 4 were all funded by the same wallet an hour ago, that is one person with 11.4%, and the picture is much worse.

The dev's wallet

The dev is the wallet that created the coin. On most launchpads the dev can buy in the same moment the coin is created, so the dev often starts as a top holder. What they do next tells you a lot.

  • The dev still holds a big share. They can sell at any moment, and you are trusting a stranger not to.
  • The dev sold everything. Very common and not always fatal. Many devs launch, sell and walk away, and the coin then belongs to whoever is left. That is how community takeovers start. But a dev who sold in the first minutes did not believe in the coin either.
  • The dev moved tokens to other wallets. This is the one to worry about. Sending supply to fresh wallets hides how much the dev really controls.

The dev's history

A dev wallet usually has a past. Tools like GMGN list the other coins the same wallet created, and so does the dev's profile page on many launchpads. A wallet that launched 40 coins this month, all dead within an hour, is a coin factory. You are not looking at a project. You are looking at one more lottery ticket from someone who sells tickets.

Insiders

Insiders are wallets tied to the people behind the coin that got in before the public could: funded by the dev, sent tokens by the dev, or buying at the exact moment of launch. Axiom shows the share held by insiders, and GMGN tags wallets it suspects are insiders. Each tool finds them with its own rules, so they will not always agree. Check two of them.

Check what you learned

0 of 4 answered

  1. Question 1TrickyOn a block explorer, the number 1 holder of a graduated coin has 18% and is labelled as the pool. What does that mean?
  2. Question 2Which dev behaviour is the biggest red flag?
  3. Question 3TrickyA dev wallet has no history at all. What does that tell you?
  4. Question 4The top 10, pool excluded, hold 22%. Four of those wallets were funded by one source and hold 13% together. How should you read it?

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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.