Pseudonymous onchain analyst Wazz published a thread on September 27, alleging that a coordinated operation extracted at least $18.43 million from 53 token launches on Robinhood Chain between July 10 and September 21. According to The Block's review of the claims, the evidence centers on token-launch mechanics, wallet funding trails, and anti-sniping exemptions on a single launchpad rather than the base layer itself. The analysis confirmed the sniping pattern on 10 of the listed launches, plus one of the fund flows used to link the launches, though it did not independently replicate the $18.43 million headline figure. The Block independently verified sniping mechanics across 10 reviewed launches, while reported cash-outs included $3.12 million from CRUMBS, $2.9 million from LEGS, and $1.3 million from PINK. BeInCrypto reports that roughly $18.11 million still sits unspent in holding wallets on Robinhood Chain and Ethereum.
The investigation centers on DEED, which Wazz claims initiated the inquiry. According to The Block's tracking, on September 14, 98 wallets holding the earlier token DRAFT transferred 179.88 ETH to one address in under three seconds, then moved it to another wallet starting with 0x9d06. On September 21, this wallet routed funds to a wallet beginning with 0xf268, which sent 15.98 ETH to 50 addresses, including DEED's creator and other exempt wallets. The Block tracked the sale of 130.75 ETH from 92 wallets funded through 0xf268 and an additional 69.06 ETH in creator fees, totaling around 199.8 ETH (approximately $535,000). BeInCrypto reports that 45 of the 53 launches were traced through money flows, with proceeds from one token being swept into a hub wallet that then paid the funding key for the next launch. The analysis identified at least 2 further serial operations that extracted millions but could not be tied to this one.
According to The Block's analysis, Pons V2 sells new tokens along a bonding curve and charges a 99% snipe tax on buys in the first seconds after launch, falling to zero within about five seconds. Creators can waive this tax by bundling opening buys across up to 32 wallets, a legitimate feature for coordinated launches that becomes a liability when abused. In nine launches from late August onward reviewed by The Block, creators exempted 15 to 25 wallets from the tax, with a single transaction one to three blocks later buying tokens for every one of them at once, leaving the creator and exempt wallets holding 82% to 86% of supply before public buyers had a chance. BeInCrypto reports that 34 of the 53 launches ran through Pons V2, the chain's dominant launchpad, with bundles of 70 to 200 wallets buying up nearly every token.
Robinhood launched Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum layer 2 built with Arbitrum's tech stack, on July 1. As reported by The Block, memecoins and stock-linked tokens have driven the bulk of the network's trading activity since launch, with fees from the Pons launchpad pushing the chain to a record $6 million in fees in a single day earlier this month. The network's decision to subsidize gas costs has kept deployment cheap and consistent, creating the terrain for this kind of operation to be built. BeInCrypto reports that daily decentralized exchange (DEX) volume peaked at $3.78 billion on September 4, up from mostly under $1 billion through July and August. Launchpad token volume reached $1.5 billion that day, with Pons alone handling $818.7 million. The Pons (PONS) token has cleared $2.74 billion in lifetime volume across 139,426 traders.
The allegations highlight the vulnerabilities of high-volume, low-friction token issuance on layer 2 networks. As reported by The Block, high-volume issuance is not itself evidence of an exploit but creates the terrain for such operations. The evidence points to coordinated launches rather than a base-layer exploit, with Wazz's attribution resting on transaction patterns, shared keys, recurring funding routes, and common collector addresses, which provides strong circumstantial evidence of coordination but not proof of real-world identity or legal responsibility. The findings underscore the need for regulatory scrutiny in the rapidly growing layer 2 ecosystem, with BeInCrypto noting that each of the top three extracted tokens fell more than 99% from its peak.
