According to Chainalysis, cryptocurrency investors spent $4.6 billion last year on ‘pump and dump’ tokens. The most prolific purported pump and dump creator is suspected of launching 264 such tokens by himself. Chainalysis classified a token as “worth analyzing” as a potential “pump and dump” if it had at least 10 swaps and four consecutive days of trading on decentralized exchanges (DEXs) in the week following its launch.
Only over 40,500 of the 1.1 million new tokens launched last year met the criteria, and 24% of the 40,500 tokens analyzed met the secondary criterion. According to Chainalysis, only 445 individuals or groups are behind the suspected pump-and-dump tokens, with a total profit of $30 million from selling their holdings. However, revenues from crypto scams were cut almost half in 2022 due to depressed crypto prices.
