Beware! Is PIPEDOG a Scam? What Are the On-Chain Doubts?

Bundled holdings, cluster addresses, and abnormal withdrawals: The on-chain doubts surrounding PIPEDOG.

Written by: KarenZ, Foresight News

The same developer first released a PIPEDOG, and about ten minutes later withdrew liquidity-related assets, followed by another token with the same name, symbol, and total supply of PIPEDOG. The first one quickly faded away, while the second surged to a market cap of $74.6 million.

This is not a fictional scenario but a real on-chain record that occurred within a few hours on the Robinhood Chain.

Seventeen Minutes, Two Tokens with the Same Name by the Same Developer

The contract address of the first PIPEDOG deployed by this developer is 0x030e...9560. On-chain records show it was deployed by address 0xa359...e814 at 04:12 on July 28; about two minutes later, the developer established a Uniswap liquidity position using nearly all tokens and about 263 WETH.

At 04:21, the market cap of the first PIPEDOG token surged to $2.11 million. Three minutes later, the developer called the multicall and withdraw functions of the Uniswap position management contract, withdrawing related liquidity. According to GMGN, within the next two minutes, the market cap of the first PIPEDOG token rapidly plummeted to around $9,000, currently slightly rebounding to $68,000.

At 04:29, the same developer address deployed the second PIPEDOG, with the contract being 0x5cb6...d8a6. This means that the two deployments were only about 17 minutes apart, with less than ten minutes from the first version's pool opening to the related withdrawal operation.

Source: GMGN

On-chain records can prove that both tokens came from the same deployment address and can restore the sequence of pool creation, liquidity withdrawal, and re-issuance of tokens, but it is unclear why the developer abandoned the first version. What is certain is that the developer did not continue to operate the original token but quickly shifted funds and market attention to the second contract with the same name.

The market cap of the second PIPEDOG token reached a peak of $74.6 million, and as of the time of writing, it is about $55 million.

24.1% Bundled Transactions and Numerous Cluster Addresses

What is noteworthy about the second PIPEDOG is not just the price increase but also its early trading and holding structure.

The GMGN page shows that its bundled holding ratio is 23.16%, with a historical high of 42.65%. Wallets identified by the platform as related to bundled transactions currently hold nearly a quarter of the tokens. Such a high ratio does not directly prove that these wallets are controlled by the developer, but it is enough for the market to further examine whether the chips are genuinely distributed among independent holders.

Source: GMGN

Bubblemaps provides another set of signals. Excluding the Uniswap pool holding about 10.19% of the tokens, the top eight holding groups all exist in clusters, containing 31, 18, 28, 18, 13, 15, 13, and 10 addresses, totaling 146 addresses. Based on the holding ratios shown in the screenshots, these eight clusters collectively control about 32% of the token supply.

Source: Bubblemaps

The first PIPEDOG also exhibits similar characteristics. GMGN shows that its bundled holding ratio is 16.5%; Bubblemaps data indicates that the largest holding address occupies 67.16% of the tokens, while the second-largest holding entity is a cluster composed of 76 addresses, collectively accounting for 21.09% of the supply.

Source: Bubblemaps

This indicates that both issuances exhibited a high proportion of bundled holdings and clustered chips, not just an isolated phenomenon occurring with the second token. However, determining whether these wallets are controlled by the same entity requires further evidence, such as the source of funds, operation times, and selling paths.

Locking Liquidity, Yet Not Locking Chip Risks

After the second token was launched, the project team claimed on Twitter that they would "permanently lock" liquidity worth 1358.83 ETH, along with an on-chain transaction invoking the lock method.

This operation can reduce the risk of the project team suddenly withdrawing the corresponding liquidity position, but locking liquidity and dispersing token chips are two different matters: LPs cannot be easily withdrawn, but that does not mean cluster wallets cannot sell tokens, nor does it mean that wallets that bought in bundled transactions early are independent of each other.

Based on the existing evidence, PIPEDOG shows a high degree of chip correlation during its launch phase, along with abnormal records of the same developer abandoning the old contract and reissuing a token with the same name in a short period. Although there is currently insufficient evidence to classify it as a "scam" manipulated by a single entity, its issuance process and holding structure have already revealed multiple risk signals that warrant caution.

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