Market makers become major coin holders, but that does not mean they are truly involved in market making

Original author: Aunt Ai, on-chain data engineer

Popular science: If a market maker holds tokens, does that mean they are involved in market making?

I saw the news this morning that "Wintermute has become the third largest holder of $GOAT, holding 1% of the total supply of tokens", but just as airdropping tokens to V God is a means of publicity, airdropping tokens to market makers is not a new thing.

Then the question is:

- How to determine whether market makers are really involved?
- Typical example of market making
- Example used only as a means of publicity

1/ Take GOAT as an example

1. Disproven: It does hold 10 million GOAT and the contract address is correct; don’t underestimate this step, as many issuers promote market makers under the name of the same token.

2. Clarify the source of funds: Tracing back, it was found that four addresses transferred millions of tokens to 7GNPT….snUM1, and they were all early-stage addresses with extremely high return rates, with a cumulative profit of 11.63 million US dollars!

Four early entry addresses for sending coins to Wintermute:
3kjF7ZXfMYo1dqxFNE7WVtQ38zZSciptu1deWYibre1m（CAnS7...JZT86 3. Check the market maker operation: After receiving the token, two things were done. First, 1 token was transferred to Wintermute1 and then transferred back immediately. This is an obvious confirmation address action. Second, all tokens were distributed to Wintermute3 address after two transfers.

Seeing this, it is basically certain that Wintermute actively participated in GOAT market making. As for whether it was OTC coin buying/instructed by the project party or spontaneous behavior, it is unknown.

4. Keep an eye on:Ultimately, we need to see if Wintermute3 frequently conducts GOAT transactions. If so, it can be confirmed.

2/ Typical example of market making

Wintermute participated in the market making of capital $NEIRO: it once held 4.35% of the total supply of tokens and was once the largest holder. After receiving the tokens, it actively maintained frequent transactions with major exchanges and DEXs.

4/ Typical example used only as a means of publicity

This type generally has several characteristics:

1. Directly airdropped by the project party/DEV
2. Usually airdropped to market makers and well-known founders in the currency circle, such as Vitalik Buterin and Sun Ge
3. Market makers do not take any action after receiving it (Vitalik Buterin may sell it directly)
4. The community publicizes that a certain institution has participated in market making

It involves pulling and stepping, so I will not give an actual example here. You can check these characteristics yourself.

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