❖ Researching Meme Coins: How Not to Fall Victim to the Market
Today, we’ll discuss how to reduce risks when farming on Meteora or purchasing meme coins. To avoid scams or becoming exit liquidity for developers and other token holders, it’s crucial to take a more serious approach to initial token analysis and examine it from multiple angles. Scammers have become highly skilled at disguising their projects, but with careful scrutiny, it’s still possible to identify warning signs.
❖ What to Look for When Researching a Token
Let’s go over the key factors to consider when selecting a liquidity pool or analyzing a new token.
❖ Price and Volume Analysis
The first things I check are trading volumes and price history.
- The minute trading volume of pools I consider should exceed $100K.
- The MarketCap of pools I prefer starts at $2M.
💡 The logic behind this: If the token price drops by 50%, the MarketCap will still be $1M, which is a psychologically significant level and aligns with the 0.5 Fibonacci retracement level, making a bounce more likely.
Next, I analyze the initial price behavior. I prefer an organic, gradual increase rather than a sharp price spike followed by a steep drop.
🚨 Beware of pump-and-dump patterns:
- These situations often occur when tokens are launched after long Twitter hype campaigns.
- Before migration, the contract address (CA) is published, attracting sniper bots.
- The price surges to $1M–$2M, then sniper bots take profits, and the token price collapses to near zero.
For me, the ideal price movement looks like the example below: a steady upward trend with periodic corrections. Each new price level should be accompanied by rising trading volumes and a shift in holder distribution.
In the image below, there is an example of a token whose price surged upwards and then entered a correction phase, followed by a decline in trading volume. This is highly likely to result in sharp price movements, most likely in a downward direction rather than upward.
❖ Social Media
On the website https://gmgn.ai/, check the project's social media in the top left corner: website, Twitter, Telegram, and repository.
We look for confirmation that a specific project or individual has launched the token. If the token contract is mentioned on Twitter, do not rush to trust it 100%—the account could be compromised.
Verify the information by checking other social media platforms or using Twitter search—someone may have already analyzed the token and shared their findings.
If the token was launched on the Pump.fun platform, find it and navigate to the token developer tab.
Check which other tokens have been launched by the developer and analyze their price behavior.
❖ Token Audit
In the top right corner of the GMGN website, there are several important metrics that you should pay attention to.
In the Audit tab, you can identify key red flags for a token, such as:
- Top 10 Holders – The percentage of total supply held by the top 10 wallets
- Blacklist – Whether the token has a blacklist function that could block certain wallets
- NoMint – Indicates whether additional token issuance is disabled
- Burnt – Whether tokens allocated for liquidity have been burned
These factors can help assess the risks associated with the token.
These parameters are essential to consider, and it’s best when all of them are green. If a token is launched outside of the Pump.fun platform, the Burnt parameter may appear red, which requires further verification of the token's legitimacy. For example, in the case of the TRUMP token, this parameter was red.
🔹 BlueChip Indicator
The BlueChip metric shows the percentage of wallets holding this token that also hold recognized high-value tokens (BlueChip tokens).
🔹 Sniper Wallets Analysis
Next, we move to the Snipers tab, which displays:
- The percentage of the total token supply purchased by sniper bots.
- The current percentage of supply still held by these wallets.
High sniper activity can indicate a potentially high-risk or pump-and-dump scenario.
It is preferable that the percentage of sniper wallets is minimal at the moment you enter a position.
❖ Bubble Map
The GMGN website includes a useful built-in tool called Bubble Map.
- It visually represents the connections between wallet holders of a given token.
- This helps identify potentially linked wallets, which could indicate manipulation or insider activity.
Analyzing the Bubble Map can provide insights into whether a token’s distribution is organic or if there are suspiciously interconnected holders controlling a large portion of the supply.
For comparison, two token distribution maps are provided, showing how the tokens are allocated among holders.
It’s best to avoid tokens where a single wallet controls the entire supply.
❖ Dev Holding
Go to the Activity > DEV tab and click on any transaction. You will see a value labeled "Unrealized."
- Ideally, the token developer should hold only a small portion of the supply or have sold everything.
- If the developer starts selling their tokens, it can trigger a significant price drop, leading to a cascade of sell-offs by both bots and manual traders, ultimately causing the token to lose its value.
Checking developer holdings is crucial to avoid being exit liquidity.
Of course, this does not eliminate the possibility that the developer sold and repurchased tokens simultaneously on two unrelated wallets. However, the fact that the Dev has sold their tokens adds a higher level of trust to the token.
Additionally, a developer can lock their tokens on Streamflow Finance, which further increases trust and transparency.
❖ Bundles
Bundles are multiple transactions grouped together and executed simultaneously.
- When creating a token, a developer can buy back their own token through several transactions, allowing them to control a significant portion of the supply.
To detect Bundles, you can use the Telegram bot @TrenchScannerBot.
A high number of Bundles can indicate potential market manipulation, so this is an important factor to check before entering a position.
I pay close attention to the Total SOL Spent metric:
Of course, token developers prefer to control the supply themselves rather than leaving it to sniper bots. However, this metric should still be considered carefully.
❖ Smart Wallets
The presence of Smart Wallets adds legitimacy to a token.
- You can check the number of Smart Wallets in GMGN under Holders > Smart.
- Alternatively, use external tools like Smart Wallet Following Bot.
A higher number of Smart Wallets indicates that experienced traders and large players trust the token, which can be a positive signal.
A large number of Smart Wallets usually indicates strong interest from experienced market participants. However, if only new wallets are buying the token, it’s worth reconsidering whether it's a good investment.
❖ Holders
Always check the Holders tab on GMGN.
- This section helps identify potential risks, such as too many red-flagged wallets.
- If a significant portion of the supply is held by suspicious wallets, the token could be at risk of manipulation or a potential rug pull.
Analyzing the distribution of holders can give valuable insights into the token’s safety and legitimacy before making an investment decision.
❖ Realized and Unrealized Profit
In the Traders > All tab, you can sort wallets by Realized and Unrealized Profit to analyze:
- How much potential profit is still held by traders (Unrealized Profit).
- How much has already been sold (Realized Profit).
If the Unrealized column shows that many traders still hold significant profits, it’s worth considering whether they might start selling soon, which could impact price growth.
However, if most profits have already been realized, the selling pressure on the market will be minimal, which may create a better buying opportunity.
By analyzing this information, you will gain a solid understanding of the token you are buying and the potential risks involved.
Wishing everyone successful trades in this dynamic market!
🔗 Useful Links:
🔹 Telegram Bot for Pool Search: Meteora Pools Selector Bot
🔹 Trading Terminal & Analytics Platform: GMGN
🔹 Smart Wallets Bot: Smart Wallet Following
🔹 Bundle Transactions Bot: Trench Scanner Bot
📢 Community & Resources:
💬 Community Chat: Meteora Navigator
📢 Telegram Channel: Meteora Navigator Updates
🐦 Twitter: NavigatorDLMM