{"id":14906,"date":"2026-10-25T16:33:49","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T16:33:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cryptonews.uk.com\/?p=14906"},"modified":"2026-10-25T16:33:49","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T16:33:49","slug":"pump-fun-copy-traders-risk-buying-the-hype","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cryptonews.uk.com\/?p=14906","title":{"rendered":"Pump.fun copy traders risk buying the hype"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Pump.fun copy traders risk following wallets whose multimillion-dollar gains come from transactions they cannot replicate, new blockchain research shows.<\/p>\n

An Oct. 22 investigation by Bitquery found that only 26% of $752.5 million in large memecoin wallet gains passed its checks for conventional market trading, raising questions about the profitability rankings investors use to identify successful traders.<\/p>\n

The study examined 3,170 wallet-token positions with reported gains of at least $100,000 between October 2025 and August 2026. It found that 51% of the gains involved wallets selling tokens received from other addresses, while another 13% exhibited patterns of potentially coordinated trading. The remaining 10% could not be conclusively classified.<\/p>\n

The findings expose a weakness in crypto copy trading, where investors use automated platforms to mirror transactions made by wallets with strong historical returns.<\/p>\n

These systems typically rely on observable purchases to establish positions. However, wallets receiving tokens through transfers can record substantial profits without executing a market purchase that followers could replicate.<\/p>\n

The practice also appears to be growing. Bitquery found that transferred-token sales accounted for seven out of every 10 large wallet wins in August, after remaining below 100 cases monthly until July.<\/p>\n

The shift suggests that traders increasingly relying on wallet leaderboards could encounter apparently profitable addresses whose trading histories provide little indication of the returns available to outside investors.<\/p>\n

Why profitable wallets may offer no trades to copy<\/h2>\n

Bitquery identified 1,579 profitable positions where most of the tokens sold had arrived through transfers rather than purchases recorded by the selling wallet.<\/p>\n

Of those, 1,104 could be traced to addresses associated with the token’s creator, either directly or through intermediary wallets.<\/p>\n

This arrangement can distort address-level profit calculations because tracking platforms typically subtract recorded purchases from sales to determine profitability.<\/p>\n

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Related Reading<\/span><\/p>\n

PumpFun is making millions from a market where 81% of memecoins crashed 90%<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n

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An investor might purchase tokens through one wallet, transfer them to another and subsequently sell them after a substantial price increase.<\/p>\n

The receiving address could then display significant profits despite recording no acquisition cost. However, the investor’s actual return would still depend on what the original wallet paid.<\/p>\n

A copy trader monitoring the receiving address would see the eventual sale without receiving the purchase signal needed to enter the position at a comparable price.<\/p>\n

Bitquery also identified 423 creator-linked transfers involving additional signing addresses. In one example involving the UOTF token, four temporary wallets received nearly eight million tokens each before forwarding them to selling addresses in a coordinated transaction.<\/p>\n

One recipient subsequently sold its holdings for $1.59 million, producing a large apparent gain without a corresponding recorded market purchase.<\/p>\n

Such transactions can make concentrated token distributions resemble successful trading activity across several independent wallets.<\/p>\n

However, transfers can also occur between wallets belonging to the same legitimate investor. The absence of a recorded purchase therefore does not independently establish manipulation.<\/p>\n