- BubbleMaps flagged the early coordinated purchases of Ava AI as suspicious activity.
- Twenty-three wallets, allegedly linked to Ava’s deployer, bought 40% of the tokens at launch.
- The AVA price has fallen 96% from its all-time high in January 2025.
The Solana-based AI token Ava AI (AVA) came 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 connected to the project’s deployer.
The findings point to possible internal coordination at launch, raising concerns about the fairness and decentralization of the token’s initial distribution.
Coordinated purchases at launch
According to BubbleMaps, 23 wallets — including the deployer — were freshly funded shortly before AVA launched on the memecoin launchpad Pump.fun.
These wallets received similar amounts of Solana (SOL) from Bitget and Binance within tight time windows and showed no prior on-chain activity before purchasing AVA.
BubbleMaps described the pattern as a classic case of “sniping,” where crypto trading bots buy tokens immediately after public release to gain a price advantage over ordinary investors.
Further analysis found that those wallets were connected to additional accounts that also bought AVA early.
The similarity in funding sources, timing, and purchase amounts strongly suggests coordination across multiple wallet clusters.
BubbleMaps noted that much of this activity went largely unnoticed at the time, underscoring the need for ongoing monitoring of early token distributions to detect suspicious behavior.
Implications for investors
News of coordinated early wallet activity sparked debate among investors and analysts.
Some observers, like Twitter user ScoutOnchain, argue that speculative buying and FOMO are inherent to emerging crypto trends, while others stress the importance of more accessible analytics tools to help investors spot questionable activity.
The concentration of nearly 40% of AVA’s supply in a small number of wallets carries significant implications for retail investors.
A large share controlled by few entities increases the risk of price manipulation or a “rug pull” scenario, in which insiders sell off holdings and cause the token’s value to collapse.
The AVA price trajectory appears to reflect those risks. After reaching an all-time high of $0.3318 on January 15, 2025, the token has declined roughly 96% from that peak and is currently trading near $0.01062, with a market capitalization of about $10.6 million.
Its 24-hour trading range sits between $0.01043 and $0.01143, while the seven-day range spans $0.008029 to $0.01371.
Despite the steep decline from its peak, circulating supply remains nearly unchanged at roughly 999 million AVA, with a capped maximum supply of 1 billion.
BubbleMaps has committed to continued monitoring of early token movements and to sharing insights with the community, signaling an ongoing effort to improve transparency around new launches.