Invest1 publisher2 min readPublished
Pons's creator-chosen tax waivers let one crew net $15.5 million from 56 Robinhood Chain launches
Bitquery tied 56 Robinhood Chain memecoin launches to one crew that netted about $15.5 million through wallets exempt from the Pons launchpad's snipe tax. Another 467 clusters ran the same play for a possible $11.6 million, so the weakness is in the venue's rules even though most of the money went to one group.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- Pons sells new tokens on a bonding curve and charges a 99% tax on first purchases, falling to zero within five seconds, to deter sniping bots.
- At the DEED launch on September 21, a group wallet funded 92 new addresses about 40 minutes early, and 25 tax-exempt wallets bought about two-thirds of supply in the next block.
- Pseudonymous analyst Wazz first tied 53 launches between July 10 and September 21 to the group and put its take at a minimum of $18.43 million.
Compiled by The InvestorSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- exposure Outside buyers of a new Pons token enter after whatever wallets the creator exempted have taken the lowest prices, so the tax meant to stop snipers also clears the first seconds for the creator's own wallets.
- constraint Buyers who lose money on these launches have a limited federal route, since the SEC said in February 2025 that meme coin transactions matching its description generally do not involve securities.
- decision The fix sits with Pons: removing creators' power to name exempt wallets would close the method for all 468 groups at once, with no need to trace any of them.
The snipe tax has one clause that decides who wins a Pons launch: the creator of each token chooses which wallets are exempt, according to The Block [4]. The crew bought through tax-exempt wallets in bundled transactions, taking large parts of each supply right after launch [2]. Across 35 launches associated with the group, Pons collected 1.9 ETH in snipe tax, according to Bitquery [7]. Pons has brought in $90 million in fees within a month, according to Cryptopolitan [16].
On DEED, Bitquery said: "No one else got a single token at launch prices" [6]. Wazz, the pseudonymous analyst who first linked the launches, said of the funding: "The proceeds of one launch pay the key that funds the next" [9].
The 467 other clusters [15] allow three readings. The first is that the crew is the case and the copycats are background. The second is that the method is the exposure, because it turned up in 468 groups on one launchpad [4]; the third, that the figures are too soft to carry either conclusion.
The money favours the first reading. Bitquery's $11.6 million across 467 clusters [15] averages about $24,800 each [1], so the crew's $15.5 million [1] is more than 600 times a typical copycat's take [2]. The $11.6 million is also a total possible earning [15], a looser basis than the crew's net figure.
The crew's own number is still moving. Bitquery counted three more launches than Wazz, UNREAL among them, and still came in about $2.93 million lower [11][3]. Its strictest accounting gives $12.4 million [12]. The Block checked ten launches and followed a single fund; it confirmed Wazz's observations but could not replicate his figures [10]. As of September 28, the group's wallets accounted for close to $11.4 million in proceeds [14].
I think the structural reading is right about the method and overstates the money. At a venue, the count is the better guide to risk. When 468 groups run one technique on one launchpad [4], the launchpad's rules are producing it. The counter-thesis is that most of the measured money traces to one crew, so stopping that crew stops most of the losses, and on Bitquery's figures that holds. It stops holding if any of the 467 scales up with the same exempt-wallet setup. Realized numbers showing the other clusters to be small, scattered operators would weaken the structural case, and a possible-earning figure cannot rule that out.
What to watch
- Any change Pons makes to who can grant snipe-tax exemptions, and whether its fee income holds up afterward.
- Realized, not possible, earnings for the 467 other clusters, showing whether any copycat is approaching the crew's scale.
- Launches after September 23 tied to the same funding wallets, which would push the crew's count past 56.