Crypto Bots: How They Manipulate Memecoin Markets and Airdrops

Whether executing algorithmic trades of memecoins or racking up transactions in anticipation of airdrops, bots are everywhere in crypto today.

Crypto bots are a ubiquitous presence in today’s digital asset markets, facilitating everything from high-frequency algorithmic trades of memecoins to amassing transactions in anticipation of airdrops. These automated programs boast capabilities that far surpass human traders, operating tirelessly around the clock to execute their programmed functions. However, the benefits these bots generate for their owners come at the expense of genuine traders and blockchain users. Their inhuman speed and precision create vast disparities in the market, leading to an uneven playing field. Magazine has even observed crypto bots that autonomously create and launch new memecoins on Solana while simultaneously pulling liquidity from older coins to rug users. Rampant bot activity also causes severe congestion on blockchain networks, resulting in higher transaction fees and slower processing times. Solana, which overtook Ethereum in fee revenue this week, experienced firsthand how bot activities degrade genuine user experience during this year’s memecoin craze. The blockchain encountered severe congestion issues, with as many as 75% of transactions failing. “These thousands of meme tokens launched on Solana. It’s all automated, and it’s 100% impacting people,” Ganesh Swami, CEO of data infrastructure firm Covalent, tells Magazine. “Forget the economic value here — [the network] just becomes unusable.” The situation worsened to the point that Solana developers had to release an update in April to address the congestion. Though recent trends have brought Solana into the spotlight, the problems caused by bots aren’t unique to the network. It is a widespread issue affecting any profitable crypto trend. A popular use of bots is for maximal extractable value, or MEV — also known as the “invisible tax.” On blockchains such as Ethereum, transactions are not processed chronologically — instead, validators prioritize orders with higher transaction fees. So, when a good profit opportunity is highlighted in the transaction queue, validators can insert their own transactions to get in first on the trade, or add transactions before and after large orders to profit from expected price changes. This additional profit is an example of MEV. Sieving through all the transactions in the mempool (the waiting line for transactions before they hit the blockchain) can be a tall order. This is where crypto bots step in to automate the scanning for MEV opportunities. That’s not to say that bots are the evil fruits of the industry that solely exist to profit their operators while stealing value from real users. Trading in today’s digitized economy can be competitive, and profitability can be determined by split-second executions. Market makers, an essential part of the crypto industry that ensures orders go through and maintains accurate prices for assets, also rely on bots to implement algorithms to ensure pricing is maintained and liquidity is provided across different markets. “We are talking about optimization of microseconds, which obviously is not possible by humans,” Mathias Beke, co-founder of market-making firm Kairon Labs, tells Magazine. “So, without automatization, our business would not be scalable at all.” Beke estimates that without bots, his business would need to hire about 200 more people to properly operate as a market maker. “In high-frequency trading, the bot becomes such a main piece that it needs to be maintained by 20 to 30 people in order to run what we want it to run,” he says. “Bots and trading algorithms are used 99% of the time on our end.” Solana’s memecoin craze is ongoing, even if it has cooled from its peak in the early half of 2024. In the week leading up to July 19, approximately 2,600 new Solana memecoins with liquidity were launched, a drop from 19,000 new tokens launched in a week observed by Magazine back in February. Rampant bot activity continues to fuel the memecoin scene on the network, with some automation features enabling users to launch tokens on platforms like Pump.fun and inorganically inflate trading volumes by creating and automating trading on multiple wallets. Magazine found a sample wallet on the Solana blockchain that holds over 3,500 different tokens, mostly memecoins. Bots can automate memecoin launches by scanning trends, but they often skip important steps, such as deploying smart contracts properly or conducting audits, says Big_Cat, product chief of Solana-based memecoin project Laika. “When used to launch memecoins without proper checks like audits, it can lead to unethical practices and risks, tarnishing the industry’s reputation,” he tells Magazine. Blockchain records of the sample wallet’s DeFi activities show that it’s creating new tokens at an alarming rate. Simultaneously, it removes the liquidity of the other tokens it has minted, an activity widely viewed as a sign of a rug-pull scam. This sample wallet’s repeated liquidity removals and rapid token minting activities do not resemble legitimate token projects. But again, there are legitimate bots that play a crucial role in managing liquidity and that can demonstrate a project is taking its product seriously. “As for Laika, we’ve successfully launched