Bitquery finds 542-wallet cluster in six memecoins

According to Bitquery’s on-chain investigation, the cluster comprised five developer or launch-funding wallets and 537 bundled wallets. Researchers reconstructed transaction histories, funding patterns and cash-out routes to assess whether the addresses represented coordinated activity rather than independent traders.

The six tokens launched between September 11 and October 4. Bitquery also corrected an important detail in the earlier allegations: none of the tokens launched through Pump.fun. Five were launched through Raydium’s LaunchLab, while HEV launched directly into a Raydium liquidity pool.

Four developer wallets bought 51.8% of supply at launch

The investigation identified a repeated funding pattern preceding the launches. Each of the five developer or launch-funding wallets received ten payments of equal size from ten different wallets, with the payments arriving within seconds of one another. The funding occurred between 39 seconds and four minutes before the relevant token went live.

A separate wallet, identified by the address prefix FLZLbH, also sent SOL shortly before every launch. Its transfers occurred approximately one to four minutes before the tokens appeared, often close to the developers’ funding transactions. However, Bitquery could not establish a direct funding path between this wallet and the developer wallets within three transaction steps. The timing therefore suggests a possible connection but does not independently establish common ownership.

The four developer wallets that made opening purchases followed an especially consistent pattern. Each acquired exactly 518,129,547 tokens, representing 51.8% of the relevant supply, in the transaction that created the token. Those positions were sold between 20 and 27 minutes later. Together, the four wallets spent approximately $13,000 and received around $162,000 from their sales.

The broader cluster comprised 537 bundled wallets divided into seven groups of between 43 and 161 wallets. Each group traded its associated token, with the median wallet acquiring between 0.5% and 1.1% of that token’s supply. Every identified bundle wallet made its first purchase within 33 minutes of launch. For HEV, 80 of the 160 identified bundle wallets bought within the first minute.

Distributing purchases across numerous addresses can make concentrated ownership less obvious when investors examine individual holder balances. In this case, the combination of repeated funding, tightly timed purchases and subsequent coordinated withdrawals provides stronger evidence of a common operation than wallet counts alone.

Cluster cashed out 5,814 SOL as Solstice’s public wallet lost money

Bitquery traced the cluster’s exits between September 28 and October 7. The wallet groups transferred their SOL through staking accounts before moving the funds into collection wallets. Each group completed its withdrawals within a few seconds, a pattern the investigators interpreted as evidence of coordinated control.

The process moved approximately 5,814 SOL, valued at roughly $692,000 at the time. That figure represents the total amount transferred through the identified cash-out route, including the cluster’s initial capital. It should not be confused with profit.

After calculating trading proceeds and costs across the six tokens, Bitquery estimated that the developer and bundle wallets generated approximately $252,000 in trading profit. Bubblemaps had previously estimated gains of around $270,000 for the connected wallets. The figures are close but differ, illustrating why estimates based on wallet attribution and transaction reconstruction can vary between investigations.

The wallet publicly identified as Solstice’s presents a different picture. On the four tokens named in Bubblemaps’ original allegations, the wallet recorded a loss of $58,999, according to Bitquery’s reconstruction. Including additional activity involving LLAMA, PERCY and THICC brought the estimated loss across seven tokens to $69,480.

Timing is central to the difference in outcomes. The bundled wallets acquired tokens within minutes of launch, while Solstice’s publicly identified wallet first bought the four named tokens between approximately 1.6 hours and four days after launch. On HEV, it waited 21 hours before making substantial purchases and subsequently sold at a significant loss.

These figures establish that the identified public wallet lost money on the relevant trades. They do not, by themselves, establish whether Solstice controlled other wallets in the cluster or participated in the launch strategy.

Exchange connections raise questions but do not prove control

Bitquery also examined whether money from the cluster reached exchange accounts associated with a wallet that had traded substantial amounts of USDC with Solstice’s account. Since May, the two wallets had exchanged approximately $380,966 in USDC in both directions.

A second wallet received USDC from Solstice’s account and paid the same Coinbase and Bitunix deposit addresses as the first wallet. Bitquery interpreted those shared deposit addresses as strong evidence that both wallets belonged to the same exchange customer.

On the cluster’s side, investigators identified several possible connections to exchange accounts used by these wallets. One route linked proceeds from two BOP groups to a Binance deposit address that had also received funds from the wallet trading with Solstice. However, approximately 50 wallets had sent at least $100 to that deposit address, meaning the shared destination alone does not prove that the senders had a common owner.

Two other connections relied partly or entirely on transaction timing. In one case, funds originating from KuCoin withdrawals reached a wallet that subsequently paid a shared Bitunix deposit address shortly after bundle groups cashed out. In another, approximately $245,000 in USDT arrived from exchanges while proceeds from the QUEEF group were moving toward Binance. Bitquery explicitly classified the latter connection as timing evidence rather than a directly traced transfer of the same funds.

The distinction is material. The evidence supports the existence of a coordinated wallet cluster and identifies points of contact with exchange accounts used by a wallet that traded with Solstice. It does not establish that Solstice personally controlled those accounts or organized the token launches. Bitquery also stated that it had not contacted Solstice.

Why the findings matter for retail memecoin traders

The central issue is not simply whether a group of wallets made money. It is whether apparently broad participation in a new token can conceal concentrated ownership and create an uneven trading environment for people who arrive later.

When a memecoin attracts attention through social media, retail buyers may interpret rising prices and numerous holders as evidence of growing demand. But if a coordinated group acquired a substantial portion of the supply before that attention arrived, its members may be positioned to sell into subsequent demand while later buyers absorb the price impact.

This risk is consistent with broader findings about the survival rates of newly launched Solana tokens, where short-lived markets and rapidly changing liquidity can leave buyers exposed to sharp losses. The existence of many token holders does not necessarily mean ownership is independent, nor does a high headline valuation establish that sufficient liquidity exists for everyone to exit.

Investors should also distinguish between a trader’s public performance and the behaviour of wallets potentially connected to the same trading environment. The concentration of token holdings across linked wallets can matter as much as the balance displayed in a single publicly identified address. Nevertheless, wallet connections must be demonstrated rather than inferred from reputation, timing or proximity alone.

The same caution applies to social trading platforms. Earlier research into FOMO app trading outcomes highlighted how speculative trading costs and concentrated profits can disadvantage retail participants. A trader’s losing public wallet does not prove that related wallets profited from coordinated activity, but neither does the public loss rule out that possibility.

For prospective buyers, practical warning signs include multiple wallets funded through similar routes, unusually synchronized purchases, large opening positions, rapid developer sales and withdrawals that converge on common collection addresses. These indicators do not automatically prove fraud, but they can reveal risks that a token’s price chart or holder count may conceal.

The next meaningful development would be evidence establishing who controls the connected wallets, direct proof of coordination, or a substantive response from Solstice and the relevant token teams. Until then, the defensible conclusion is narrower: Bitquery has independently documented a coordinated pattern of token accumulation and cash-outs across a 542-wallet cluster, while important questions about its relationship with Solstice remain unresolved.