An on-chain investigator pseudonymously known as Dethective recently uncovered a suspicious pattern involving wallets that made massive profits from the launches of two tokens Kanye Wests YZY coin and another token called LIBRA.

According to the findings, one wallet was able to buy $250,000 worth of YZY tokens at a price of just $0.20 each, while most traders had to pay over $1 per token. This gave the wallet a huge advantage and allowed it to secure nearly $1 million in profit within only eight minutes. After the quick win, the profits were moved to a new treasury wallet.

YZY and LIBRA Extraction Pattern Identified

What makes this case even more interesting is that the same treasury wallet had already received large sums from earlier activity connected to the LIBRA token launch six months ago. Back then, two special wallets managed to snipe LIBRA tokens at the earliest opportunity.

The first wallet walked away with around $9 million, while the second did even better and managed to extract about $11.5 million. Both wallets used similar tactics to the YZY trade. They bought tokens before the general public could access them.

In total, across both YZY and LIBRA launches, these wallets pulled out close to $23 million. Most of the money has since been moved to platforms like Kamino or exchanges like Binance.

Dethective pointed out that this pattern strongly indicates that insider knowledge was involved. The wallets in question did not randomly trade many different coins. Instead, they only appeared during the launches of YZY and LIBRA, and each time they were ready to invest huge sums of money. This level of timing and scale would be nearly impossible without advance information about when and how the tokens would launch.

While its not clear who exactly is behind these wallets, speculation has emerged about whether it could be linked to Hayden Davis, the controversial figure behind the LIBRA token. However, there is no proof of that connection yet.

Dethective argued that what looks like celebrity coins meant to attract new people into crypto might actually be serving another purpose transferring wealth from regular traders to well-prepared insiders. Instead of being an equal opportunity market, these launches appear to make the rich even richer, with influencers and insiders benefiting the most while everyday traders end up paying higher prices.

Over 60% of YZY Traders Lost Money, So Far

Researcher Defioasis shared data showing how traders fared with the YZY token. Out of 56,050 wallets that traded YZY in a single day, nearly 45% either bought or sold, but not both. Many of the only buying wallets might be fake accounts created to inflate activity, while most of the only selling wallets were linked to big holders or project insiders cashing out, which makes it harder to track.

Among the 30,884 wallets that both bought and sold, around 38% made profits, but most earned very small amounts, less than $500. A small group of 406 wallets made over $10,000 each, and just five wallets scored more than $1 million, including some linked to insiders.

On the other hand, more than 60% of traders actually lost money. In fact, almost half of them ended up losing up to $500. In one extreme case, a single trader ended up losing over $1 million.