Start with what the holders paid
An allocated holder, an early buyer, and a late buyer may pay very different amounts for the same tokens. “Cost basis” means the acquisition cost you record using a consistent method, including relevant fees. Use actual assets paid where the history is available; mark missing cost history unknown.
Early holders may profit at prices where later buyers lose money. Compare actual sale proceeds with known purchase costs. Quote the remaining sale quantity to estimate what it could receive today; the chart price alone may overstate what a large position can sell for.
Follow the group's transactions
Record purchases, sales, outside transfers, and movements within the group. Purchases add units for payment; completed sales receive another asset. Internal transfers change which group wallet holds units while leaving the group total unchanged.
Use opening holdings + purchases + outside inflows − sales − outside outflows = closing holdings. Check missing routes, transfers, and owners when balances do not match. A single green buy can appear during a period when the group is reducing its overall holdings.
Compare sales with spending and delivery
A dev may use disclosed fees or token sales to fund work or take profit. Check sale quantity, pace, market depth, disclosure, and spending evidence. Compare promises with delivered work.
Alignment means work and participation are supporting each other. Divergence means the dev's interests or actions and traders' interests are moving apart. Destructive distribution describes sales that repeatedly overwhelm buying, or sales with supported evidence of concealment. Save observable transactions before assigning a motive.
For a claimed service bill, follow payments and look for the bill and delivered work. A transfer to treasury leaves the use of funds open. Repeated promotion alongside sales needs checking against disclosures and subsequent work. A team can keep delivering while buyer demand weakens. Rising prices during sales still leave quantities, remaining holdings, controls, and continuing buying to check.
Check previous launches and changing demand
Find earlier deployments and verify the creator or team connection. Common launch services and exchange funders can serve unrelated projects. Compare both successful and unsuccessful launches: allocations, control rights, promises, delivery, sales, and outcomes.
Look for declining fee receipts, failed migration, a new creator launch, missed releases, buyers moving to competitors or a new theme, a story losing attention, or continued sales as buying weakens. Verify competitors' full token addresses and original sources. A quiet day or one price fall leaves several possible explanations; record the evidence supporting each.
How to investigate it
- Choose the confirmed wallet group, period, and opening balances. Classify transactions and save quantities, assets paid or received, relevant fees, and links.
- Check the closing balance and explain gaps. Keep unavailable purchase history unresolved.
- Compare equal event periods with consistent pool coverage: group sales, remaining tokens, fees, buying, and sale quotes.
- Match statements to sales, outgoing payments, bills, and delivered work. Save any contradictory disclosure with qualified ownership evidence.
- Compare verified previous launches with today's promises, delivery, competitors, and market activity. Set the next check around a release, unlock, control change, new launch, or continuing decline in buying.
Practical case — illustrative
At 09:40 UTC, SAMPLE's confirmed group holds 12m available units. Over the next hour:
| Event | Change in group units | Remaining |
|---|---|---|
| Opening holdings | 0 | 12m |
| Sold 5m | −5m | 7m |
| Moved 2m between its wallets | 0 | 7m |
| Bought 1m | +1m | 8m |
The group reduced its available holdings by 4m. These trades moved tokens between holders, so available holder supply stays 100m. The group holds 8%, with its 20m locked allocation recorded separately.
The dev describes the sale as funding a service bill. A payment and delivered work support part of that spending. Record the supported amount and any gap. By evening, buying outside the group and fee receipts weaken as buyers move to another verified token, while the dev continues updates. The next 4m unlock is still scheduled.
Earlier launches show two delivered updates and one missed promise. Keep all three in the record with sources and confidence in the team link. They help frame today's questions.
Keep this record
Save the reconciled ledger, known purchase costs, remaining holdings, disclosure/payment/delivery timeline, launch history, and next check. Update the demand case and supply checks separately when evidence changes.
Add these findings to your review worksheet →
Check your understanding — answered
A green buy appears. Is the group adding overall? Total purchases, sales, and outside transfers over your chosen period.
The dev recovered its purchase cost. Are the remaining tokens free? They still have value and may be hard to sell; record remaining value and sale quotes.
The dev sold. Was it malicious? Check amounts, disclosure, related wallets, market depth, and supported use of proceeds.
No post for a day, a successful past token, or a new ticker: enough to decide? Check promised schedules, current work and controls, actual transactions, fresh participation, and the current catalyst. Mark unexplained ledger gaps and missing evidence.
Mechanism references
SAMPLE is made up for this course. Date each finding. For a real token, use current transaction records and platform rules. Inspect shows sampled trades; use external records to check ownership and permissions.