A pseudonymous on-chain investigator says a single operation may have repeated essentially the same token-launch strategy 53 times on Robinhood Chain, extracting at least $18.43 million between July 10 and September 21.
The September 27 investigation by analyst Wazz links the launches through a combination of fund flows, signing activity and collector wallets. According to the analysis, 45 launches can be connected because proceeds from one operation were subsequently used to fund addresses involved in another. Four additional launches were linked through shared signing keys and another four through a common collection wallet.
The $18.43 million figure should be treated as an analyst estimate rather than a confirmed loss total. Independent checking of 10 Pons V2 launches listed in the investigation reproduced the unusual opening-buy mechanics and one funding trail between tokens called DRAFT and DEED, but did not independently reproduce the full $18.43 million calculation.
Wazz says the broader pattern typically involved 70 to 200 wallets accumulating more than 70% of a newly launched token’s supply before subsequent buyers entered the market.
The largest extraction in the analyst’s dataset was CRUMBS at approximately $3.12 million, followed by LEGS at about $2.9 million and PINK at roughly $1.44 million. Those figures also remain part of Wazz’s analysis rather than independently established investor losses.
The DRAFT-to-DEED Trail Shows Why the Wallet Links Matter
One of the strongest pieces of corroborating evidence involves DRAFT and DEED.
On September 14, 98 wallets that had held DRAFT sent a combined 179.88 ETH to one address within a period of roughly three seconds. The ETH was then consolidated and later moved through additional addresses.
On September 21, part of that same funding trail reached wallets involved in the DEED launch. One address distributed 15.98 ETH across 50 wallets shortly before DEED appeared, including the token creator and addresses involved in its opening purchases.
DEED launched about 40 minutes later. Its creator and the wallets receiving special treatment during the opening transaction ended up controlling approximately 86% of the supply.
That matters because a shared service or common transaction pattern alone would not necessarily prove that two launches were controlled by the same party. Following money from wallets associated with one launch into the addresses funding another creates a considerably stronger connection.
There is still an important limitation. Blockchain analysis can show that addresses interacted and that money moved between them. It does not, by itself, reveal the real-world identities of the people controlling those addresses.
Pons V2’s Anti-Sniping Feature Is at the Center of the Investigation
The more important question may be how the reported accumulation happened so quickly.
Most of the launches identified by Wazz used Pons V2, a token launchpad on Robinhood Chain. Pons uses a bonding-curve system in which tokens are sold before graduating into decentralized exchange liquidity.
Its official V2 documentation includes an anti-sniping mechanism designed to stop automated traders from capturing the cheapest tokens immediately after launch. The tax begins at 99% of an opening purchase and rapidly decays toward zero during the first few seconds.
But there is an exception.
The launching address and creator fee recipient are exempt automatically, while the creator can designate as many as 32 additional addresses that are also exempt from the opening tax. Pons describes the feature as being available for a team that wants to bundle its opening purchases across multiple wallets. Those exemptions are fixed when the token is created.
In nine launches from late August onward that were independently examined, creators reportedly exempted between 15 and 25 wallets. One to three blocks later, a single transaction purchased tokens for the exempt addresses simultaneously.
The result was extreme concentration. The creator and exempt wallets emerged from those opening transactions holding between 82% and 86% of the supply.
That is especially notable because supply concentration is one of the core risks investors need to examine in newly created memecoins. As Dave Finances previously noted when analyzing a Pump.fun token’s holder structure, a small balance in the visible creator wallet does not establish that insiders lack exposure because one operator can control many addresses.
This Does Not Look Like a Conventional Smart-Contract Exploit
The distinction matters.
There is currently no evidence that the reported operators hacked Pons V2 or bypassed its smart contracts. The exemption function exists deliberately.
If Wazz’s analysis is correct, the operators appear to have used functionality available to creators in a way that gave selected wallets an enormous advantage over ordinary opening buyers.
That makes this closer to a market-design problem than a conventional software exploit.
Anti-sniping systems are supposed to improve launch fairness by making it prohibitively expensive for bots to capture supply before everyone else. But if the creator can simultaneously identify dozens of addresses that are not subject to the same restriction, the protection becomes asymmetric.
Outside snipers face a tax approaching 99%. Creator-approved wallets do not.
That difference becomes especially powerful when bundling software allows many wallets to purchase simultaneously. Instead of one obvious insider address acquiring most of the token, supply can be distributed among dozens or even hundreds of addresses.
That can make the concentration less immediately visible to someone looking only at the largest individual holder.
The mechanics resemble the broader problem facing permissionless token launchpads: making launches easier also makes it easier to industrialize strategies that previously required more technical work. Pump.fun demonstrated how dramatically launch infrastructure can scale, and Dave Finances recently examined how the platform has evolved from a Solana-focused token launchpad into a multichain trading platform.
The Same Tools That Democratize Token Creation Can Automate Extraction
This is where the Robinhood Chain investigation becomes more interesting than another collection of failed memecoins.
Launching a token is increasingly an infrastructure problem rather than a technical achievement. Bonding curves determine pricing, routers execute purchases, launchpads create liquidity, bundlers distribute transactions across wallets and automated systems can eventually sell those positions.
Put those pieces together and a token operation can become repeatable.
That appears to be what Wazz is alleging: not 53 unrelated developers independently discovering the same aggressive launch strategy, but one operation recycling capital from one launch into the next.
If established, that would change how investors should think about wallet counts. Seventy or 100 addresses buying a token does not necessarily mean 70 or 100 independent participants are providing price discovery.
The same problem appears when assessing trading volume. Dave Finances’ analysis of memecoin liquidity and supply concentration showed why market capitalization and headline activity say little about how much genuinely independent capital supports a token.
For launchpads, this creates an uncomfortable trade-off. Bundling can have legitimate uses. Teams may genuinely want tokens distributed across treasury, contributor or liquidity addresses. Atomic purchases can also prevent third-party bots from front-running a creator’s own initial transaction.
But flexibility that helps legitimate creators can also lower the cost of coordinating insider accumulation.
Robinhood Chain Is the Venue, Not the Alleged Operator
The investigation also requires a clear distinction between Robinhood Chain and the tokens deployed on it.
Robinhood launched the public mainnet on July 1 as an Ethereum-compatible Layer 2 built for tokenized financial assets, decentralized finance and other on-chain applications. The network is permissionless, meaning independent developers can deploy applications and assets without Robinhood individually approving each token.
There is no evidence that Robinhood created, promoted or operated the 53 launches identified by Wazz.
The episode instead illustrates what permissionless infrastructure can attract once trading activity and liquidity arrive. Robinhood’s original emphasis was tokenized financial assets, yet speculative token markets rapidly became a significant part of the chain’s activity. Pump.fun itself has already added Robinhood Chain to its broader multichain trading infrastructure, reflecting how quickly the network has become connected to retail token markets.
Pons’s own documentation currently says V2 remains under review by three independent security teams and should be treated as unaudited until those reviews are completed. The documentation also currently says public launches are closed and creation is limited to whitelisted addresses. There is no public evidence establishing that restriction as a response to Wazz’s investigation.
The $18.43M Number Matters Less Than Whether the Playbook Is Repeatable
The natural headline is $18.43 million.
But that is probably not the most important number.
The more consequential figure is 53.
A one-off token collapse can be explained by poor liquidity, aggressive insiders, failed speculation or outright misconduct. A sequence of dozens of launches showing substantially similar funding, wallet and execution patterns suggests something much more scalable.
That is why the investigation deserves attention even while the headline amount remains only partially corroborated.
The next step is not simply finding another wallet linked to the group. It is determining whether launchpads can make this behavior obvious before ordinary traders provide exit liquidity.
Useful warning signals could include the number of tax-exempt wallets declared at launch, the percentage of supply acquired by those addresses immediately afterward, common funding sources, synchronized purchases and whether proceeds from an earlier token later finance a new launch.
Those signals are particularly valuable because they focus on structure rather than trying to guess intent.
The economics of memecoin launchpads can be enormous even when individual tokens disappear quickly. Dave Finances recently reported that Pump.fun’s accumulated SOL sales were tracked at roughly $848 million, illustrating how much capital can move through infrastructure built around rapid token creation.
If a coordinated operator can repeatedly use launch mechanics to establish dominant supply positions before public traders arrive, then the risk is no longer merely that one memecoin might be a rug pull.
It is that rug pulling itself can become a repeatable production process.
Johan Shamshad is a financial markets writer at Dave Finances covering cryptocurrencies, trading platforms, brokers, fintech, financial regulation, and developments across global markets. He previously worked at Gulf News, adding newsroom experience to his coverage of fast-moving financial and digital-asset markets.
His work focuses on identifying market-moving events, company developments, regulatory changes, product launches, and shifts in trading and financial infrastructure.
Johan contributes news and analysis designed to help readers understand not only what happened, but why a development matters and how it may affect the wider financial landscape.