- Bubblemaps flagged coordinated early Ava AI purchases as suspicious activity.
- 23 wallets, allegedly tied to the Ava AI deployer, bought 40% of tokens at launch.
- AVA price has fallen 96% from its January 2025 all-time high.
The Solana-based AI token Ava AI (AVA) has come under scrutiny after blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps revealed that nearly half of the token’s initial supply may have been acquired by a small cluster of wallets tied to the project’s deployer.
The findings suggest potential insider coordination during the token’s launch, raising questions about the fairness and decentralisation of its initial distribution.
Coordinated buying at launch
According to Bubblemaps, 23 wallets, including the deployer, were freshly funded just before AVA’s debut on the memecoin launch platform Pump.fun.
These wallets, funded through Bitget and Binance in tight time windows, received similar amounts of Solana (SOL) and showed no prior blockchain activity before acquiring AVA.
Bubblemaps described this as a classic example of “sniping,” where crypto trading bots purchase tokens immediately upon public release to gain a price advantage over ordinary investors.
Further analysis revealed that these wallets were connected to other accounts that also bought AVA early.
The similarity in funding sources, timing, and purchase amounts strongly suggests coordination across multiple wallet clusters.
Bubblemaps highlighted that much of this activity went unnoticed at the time, emphasising the need for ongoing monitoring of early token distribution to detect suspicious behaviour.
Implications for investors
The news of early wallet coordination has sparked discussions among investors and analysts.
Some, like the Twitter user ScoutOnchain, argue that speculative buying and FOMO are intrinsic to new crypto trends, while others emphasise the need for more accessible analytics tools to help investors detect suspicious activity.
The concentration of nearly 40% of AVA’s supply in a small number of wallets has significant implications for retail investors.
A large supply held by few entities can increase the risk of price manipulation or a rug pull, where insiders dump their holdings and cause the token’s value to collapse.
AVA’s price trajectory appears to reflect these risks.
After reaching an all-time high of $0.3318 on January 15, 2025, the token has fallen by approximately 96% from that peak, currently trading around $0.01062 with a market capitalisation of $10.6 million.
Its 24-hour trading range currently sits between $0.01043 and $0.01143, while the seven-day range has swung between $0.008029 and $0.01371.
And despite the decline from its peak, the token’s circulating supply remains nearly identical to its total supply of approximately 999 million AVA, with a maximum supply capped at 1 billion.
Bubblemaps has pledged to continue monitoring early token movements and provide insights to the community, signalling an ongoing effort to bring transparency to new launches.
