They should not think that this has ended. The correct question is not whether PIPPIN went up, but why, while at recent highs, the whales did not sell. When an asset is extraordinarily concentrated in few hands, its real operational value is only one: to generate profits at the moment of sale. The fact that these same entities did not liquidate at the most profitable available point reveals that they were not looking to capture that momentum, but something greater. This forces us to discard the hypothesis of manipulation by coordination of bots or retail networks and directs attention towards a different model: a strategic sequence characteristic of Smart Money.
The first technical indication appears in the Funding Rate.
Although this mechanism has a complex function, it can be explained simply: Funding balances the futures market. If leveraged buyers (longs) predominate, Funding becomes positive; if sellers (shorts) predominate, it becomes negative. In assets driven by retail euphoria, pumps are usually accompanied by consistently positive Funding.
In PIPPIN, the opposite happened: even during strong impulses, the Funding remained stable. This shows that the rises were not originated by a mass of leveraged longs, but by large and specific buys, bought directly in the book or through high-depth spot orders.
I detail it more extensively here (if you don't want analysis, you can move to the second point):
Funding is the most reliable tool to differentiate between a movement caused by retail euphoria, a classic Pump-and-Dump, or a deliberate sequence by Smart Money. Its structural function is to balance the futures market, forcing traders to pay to operate against the dominant pressure.
If the majority of the market is in long, the Funding becomes positive, forcing them to pay periodically.
If the majority is in short, the Funding becomes negative, forcing them to pay as well.
For this reason, Funding reveals who is really holding the movement.
In a genuine POD, the same symptoms are always observed:
1. Extremely positive Funding during the impulse, because retail enters en masse into leveraged longs.
2. Accumulation of long positions in disproportionate percentages.
3. Quick exits, where the same pump generators liquidate while retail continues buying.
None of this happened in PIPPIN.
Why this structure is not a POD but Smart Money action
The behavior of Funding in PIPPIN is anomalous for a POD and highly characteristic of institutional trading:
1. Stable Funding even during strong movements
If a token rises strongly and the Funding does not spike, it means that the movement is not coming from leveraged longs, but from clean buys in Spot or deep book purchases.
This excludes retail POD, because a POD needs a massive influx of longs to inflate the candle.
Here exactly the opposite happened:
The price rose without the longs increasing.
The Funding remained neutral.
The shorts continued to dominate with about 72%–75% of market interest.
This means that the rise came from large capital, not from public leverage.
2. Smart Money does not destroy the structure it needs to exploit
A classic POD needs the masses to enter buying to then liquidate them.
Smart Money needs the opposite: for the masses to open shorts to create upper liquidity.
PIPPIN shows:
Massive dominance of shorts.
Absence of speculative longs at key levels.
Institutional defense at 0.38–0.39.
Two absorbed impulse attempts without institutional liquidation.
This corresponds to a scenario where:
Smart Money buys cheap.
Causes controlled rejection so the public opens more shorts.
Creates a top zone loaded with stops.
Waits for the forced breakout when the market maker activates the liquidity zone.
3. A POD never keeps whales inside the position
In a POD:
Whales sell at the peak.
The structure breaks immediately.
The market falls without defense.
In PIPPIN, the opposite happens:
Whales have not sold at recent highs.
The structure has not collapsed.
The instrument maintains defensive activity at specific ranges.
Absorptions occur with technical precision, not with abrupt falls.
This demonstrates strategic intent, not opportunistic liquidation.
Conclusion incorporated into the analysis
Stable Funding, the absence of massive longs, absorbed rejections, concentration of shorts, and lack of institutional sales at key resistances are unmistakable signs that the current structure is not a POD. It is a sequence designed to create upward forced pressure, characteristic of Smart Money working with retail liquidity and automated activation zones of the market maker.
Here appears the second indication.
Relevant data on whale token movement:
1. Real Concentration of PIPPIN
Top 25 holders control ~73% of the total supply:
Top holder: Gate Wallet with 6.46%
Top 3: ~14.5% combined
Top 10: ~34% combined
Top 25: ~73% of the supply
2. Warning signs:
Very high concentration: 73% in only 25 wallets is risky
Multiple "Investment Recipients": Several holders with 2-4% each without sending activity (possible insiders)
Concentrated exchanges: Gate.io has multiple wallets with significant holdings
3. Who bought the pump:
SOL Millionaire [BMnT51N4]: Bought $88k in multiple transactions between $0.31-$0.34
30D Smart Trader: Sold $54k in FARTCOIN to rotate to PIPPIN
Large trades of $10k-$23k concentrated between 11:00-14:00 hrs
4. PIPPIN Trading Activity - Last 2 Days
Large purchases detected:
December 10 (pump $0.32 → $0.39):
Top 100 on PIPPIN Leaderboard [6kXnyCrN]: Bought $100k at $0.366 (10:50 AM).
The same trader sold $109k x2 at $0.357 an hour later (took quick profits)
December 9:
Top 100 on FARTCOIN [EtivKm3B]: Bought 512k PIPPIN for $93k at $0.18 (01:54 AM).
Sold 500k for $146k at $0.29 (21:10 PM) = +57% profit in 19 hours.
Today December 11:
Whale [3LXnQSaz]: Bought $79.5k at $0.327 (09:41 AM), sold 30 min later at $0.323 (small loss)
30D Smart Trader: Sold $54k rotating to FARTCOIN (11:56 AM)
Key pattern: Pumps are generated by traders from the Top 100 who buy strongly and sell quickly (scalping). There is no sustained accumulation, just short-term speculative trading.
Explanation:
On December 10, 2025, a large purchase was recorded executed by a whale. That purchase drove the price from approximately 0.32 to 0.39. It was not a sustained rise from multiple small purchases, but a single movement caused by a specific volume. This operation was part of a broader accumulation in the previous days, where a whale in the Solana network spent 23,736 SOL (approximately $3.3 million) to acquire 16.35 million PIPPIN at an average price of ~0.20 USD per token, and currently shows more than $740,000 in unrealized profit based on on-chain data.
However, the zone was rejected and the defense absorbed the entirety of the movement. That absorption is not a minor event: it indicates that at 0.38–0.39 there is a selling block capable of neutralizing even large magnitude entries.
On December 11, 2025, the second attempt occurred. This purchase was made around 0.33, again looking to ascend to the upper block. And, like the day before, the level absorbed all the volume again. Two consecutive attempts with identical rejections do not reflect weakness from the whales; they reflect a defense in that range that must be consumed before being able to break it.
To understand the logic behind both operations, it is necessary to explain how the Market Maker Bot works.
Its function is not to manipulate the market, but to protect the structure of the exchange, avoiding abrupt losses that compromise collateral. To do this, it uses the Oracles' information, which consolidates the global price, and executes trades in Spot as the primary reference of the real value of the asset. When the global market adopts a bearish perception, the natural response is for futures to fill with sales. In PIPPIN, approximately 75% of current trades correspond to organic sales, i.e., shorts opened by genuine perception of decline according to market data observed in the same range of days.
However, this accumulation of sales generates an inevitable phenomenon: upper liquidity zones. Each short contains a stop loss; each stop represents a forced buy if the price rises. For this reason, when the percentage of short positions reaches such high levels, the Market Maker Bot is forced to drive the price upward to avoid a deep imbalance. Letting the price fall with ~72% of the market short would cause a disproportionate drain of liquidity, systemic risk, and losses that the exchange tries to avoid.
Here enters the strategy of Smart Money.
The whale sells after buying not to provoke a sustained drop, but to generate the perception that the market is losing strength. That perception feeds more shorts, increasing liquidity in upper zones. When that liquidity is sufficient, the Market Maker Bot has the structural obligation to seek out those zones and activate them. When the stops of the shorts are activated, forced buys occur that generate organic momentum, not dependent on retail speculation. That organic momentum is the necessary fuel for whales to re-enter, for the third time, with real capacity to break 0.38–0.39, consuming the selling block that absorbed the two previous attempts.
In summary: Smart Money is not looking to provoke a real drop. It is building the scenario for the market itself, through the natural pressure of excess shorts, to generate the strength needed to break the defense zone. The absence of massive whale sales at recent high levels is, in fact, the clearest proof that the current sequence is incomplete. Whales have not closed because the movement they are creating conditions for has not yet occurred.
