The new "Dog King" NEIRO's insider trading tactics: mixing coins to buy 70% of the tokens, KOLs collectively promoting to create FOMO

Author: Frank, PANews

The RUG tactics of MEME coins are changing, and a new type of bundled insider trading method is becoming increasingly common.

On July 31, Bubblemaps revealed that the $NEIRO token, issued on Ethereum, has a large amount of internal insider trading, with about 78% of the tokens being pre-allocated and subsequently transferred to over 400 wallet addresses. Even after being exposed, the price of NEIRO tokens continued to soar under severe FOMO sentiment, with a market cap exceeding $170 million. Based on the market cap of $170 million on August 1, the insider trading share of NEIRO could reach as high as $130 million, making it the largest insider trading case among MEME coins.

Funds Purchased 70% of Tokens in Bulk from a Mixer

NEIRO is named after Kabosu, the owner of the deceased Dogecoin prototype Shiba Inu, who recently adopted a rescue dog. Once made public, this name became the new darling of MEME coins, as people attempted to replicate the miracle of Dogecoin, with multiple tokens of the same name being issued on public chains like Ethereum and Solana simultaneously. As of August 1, NEIRO on Ethereum seems to have become the new "Dog King," with a market cap of $160 million. However, behind this high market cap lies a web of tactics and a crisis of over 70% insider trading.

After analyzing the suspected insider trading addresses of NEIRO tokens, PANews found that these addresses appeared to be unrelated on the surface. In reality, tracing the source of funds for these addresses revealed that their initial funds all came from a mixer address marked as Cointool, with the funds being transferred at 22:13 (UTC) on July 27, with amounts generally around 0.05 Ethereum.

Subsequently, at 22:30 on July 27, within less than a minute of NEIRO's issuance, these addresses simultaneously purchased about $100 worth of NEIRO (the purchase amounts varied due to market cap changes). This large number of small purchases in a short time allowed NEIRO tokens to quickly stand out on Ethereum's new token leaderboard. Following this, some bots specifically targeting new coins and market-making arbitrage bots entered the scene, quickly "covering" these insider trading activities.

However, PANews tracked the Cointool mixer platform and found that its functions include bulk wallet generation, bulk transfers, and bulk automatic purchases. Developers can easily use these features to disguise themselves as dozens of purchasing addresses and buy in at the same time. For example, the address 0x525F78D35De309f0f53311C5A69370597AC86A26 spent about $100 to purchase 9.997 million NEIRO tokens, currently valued at about $1.5 million, with a return rate of approximately 14,925 times. The tokens were then split into two transfers to two addresses. As of August 1, most of the NEIRO tokens in these addresses remain unsold, perhaps to avoid drawing attention (after all, holding 0.5% of the amount is close to $750,000), and on the other hand, the operators have not yet transferred Ethereum tokens to these split addresses to pay for transaction gas.

Multiple Japanese KOLs Support

Of course, the advantage of using mixers to hide insider trading is not limited to this. In subsequent promotions, the project team also highlighted the advantage of the number of addresses brought by these insider trades as a key selling point on social media. The third tweet from the official account stated: "Our good girl $NEIRO has surpassed 500 holders, with a trading volume close to $4 million and is currently trending on @DEXToolsApp."

A token with a market cap of $160 million cannot simply rely on mixers to achieve success. In addition to insider trading, NEIRO has also gained substantial support from many KOLs, especially those who primarily speak Japanese.

With the support of KOLs like @apipiro22, @mikky8080, @yukimarupotty, @BrotherMKT, @KookCapitalLLC, and @OfficialTravlad, who have tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of followers, the price of NEIRO has also risen significantly, successfully listing on exchanges such as MEXC, XT, Poloniex, and LBank.

Interestingly, after Bubblemaps exposed the insider trading of NEIRO tokens, several of the aforementioned KOLs appeared in the comments section of Bubblemaps, countering the claims and stating that team control of the tokens is a bullish signal.

No One Cares About Insider Trading; Pumping is the Hard Truth?

In fact, after the insider trading incident was exposed, the price of NEIRO tokens was not significantly affected; instead, it continued to rise, from a market cap of $70 million to $170 million. According to the latest statistics from Bubblemaps, insider trading still holds about 66% of the tokens, valued at over $100 million.

Image Source: Bubblemaps

The team initially spent about $10,000, with overall returns exceeding ten thousand times.

However, as the addresses have been exposed, the insider trading's exit strategy seems to have become a major issue. The operators are currently gradually offloading by dispersing more wallets or transferring to centralized exchanges. It remains to be seen how much of NEIRO's market cap will remain after the sale of these 66% of tokens.

Moreover, NEIRO's bundled insider trading is not a new phenomenon. On July 24, blogger @plonkbot indicated that nearly half of the issuance on the Solana chain's Pump.fun involved such bundled behavior. Observations by PANews also showed that token trading on Pump.fun has indeed been heavily occupied by bots. Opening any newly issued token will reveal a large number of bots trading, making MEME seem no longer a friendly gold mine for ordinary retail investors who cannot effectively utilize bot tools.