Written by: danny

Many people study on-chain data to find out "does this coin have a whale," and then try to find ways to avoid, embrace, or follow it. But the truth is—coins without whales simply do not rise. So the truly useful question is not "is there a whale," but "what stage is the whale at"—accumulation, rising, distributing, or has it already left?

Let’s state the conclusion: you will definitely find whales because they are everywhere.

This article provides you with a set of on-chain + off-chain signal frameworks. It’s not to turn you into a detective to catch the whale, but to help you quickly determine: is the current market environment friendly to retail investors?

1. On-chain signals: what chips and funds are saying

Remember: this version lacks funds and data; what it lacks is willing funds to participate. Like all games, everything revolves around how to make you "pay to recharge." As long as you keep paying attention, with thousands of memes and face, there is always one that suits you.

1: Concentration of Chips—calculating associated wallets together, concentration is not important, but how much concentration matters

Don’t just look at the "Top 10 Holders Ratio"; anyone can see this number, and it’s easily disguised—whales split the coins into 50 wallets, each holding only 1%, making the Top 10 look very "healthy." The correct approach is to open specialized tracking software to view the clustered graph, merging the connected addresses (those with direct transfer relations). If three wallets each hold 2% and have transferred among each other, then one person effectively holds 6%. Next, check the buying dates of these associated addresses—if concentrated on the same day or even within the same hour, ask yourself, do you believe in coincidence?

Tracing the source of funds (funding wallet analysis)—where did the initial ETH/BNB of these wallets come from? If the gas fees of 50 wallets all come from the same CEX withdrawal address or the same funding wallet, even if there is no direct transfer between them, it is highly probable that it is the same person.

If someone spends money to collect, what do you think they want to do?

2: Authenticity of Trading Volume—Vol / Holder (OI) number

24-hour trading volume ÷ Total number of holders = average trading volume contributed by each holder. If a coin has only 800 holders and a 24-hour trading volume of 2 million USD, the average contribution would be 2500 USD—this is likely several addresses aggressively wash trading, or a bot is operating. What is the goal when people spend money to fake trading volume?

3: Monitoring DEX Liquidity Pool

Observe the increase or decrease of LP (liquidity pool)—whales withdrawing LP / adding LP is a signal of leaving / doing something else. If LP is not locked (unlocked), or the lock-up is about to expire, the risk is extremely high. Also observe the changes in LP depth; if the price is rising but the LP depth is decreasing, it indicates that whales may be quietly pulling out liquidity to minimize their losses during a potential exit, and vice versa.

4: Reasonableness of Turnover—24h Vol / Market Cap

To measure "what proportion of the market cap has been traded in a day." If you break it down hourly, if the trading volume in certain hours suddenly spikes far beyond other periods, it indicates that someone is concentrating on wash trading. Normal retail trading time distribution is relatively smooth; sudden spikes are likely preludes to manipulation. Additionally, it's more valuable to analyze net buy volume rather than total trading volume.

5: Number of Transactions vs Trading Volume—Proportion of Large Orders

Look at the average amount per transaction within 24 hours. If the top 10% of large trades account for over 60% of total trading volume, this market is driven by a few addresses, and price movements depend entirely on these addresses. (A better method is to use the Gini coefficient to quantify the concentration of trading volume, where a value closer to 1 indicates greater concentration). When these addresses stop moving, it is more important than when they do move.

6: Growth Rate of Addresses/Accounts/OI vs Price Change Rate—Determining Which Stage the Whale is in

Combining the calculations of the previous five indicators (it is essential to process, screen, and calculate), how do you analyze the data to understand what stage the asset is currently in?

Accumulation Stage: Price is hovering low or even slightly declining, while large on-chain addresses are slowly buying in with little change in wallet/account numbers. The whale is quietly collecting chips. (Those associated addresses do not count here～)

Rising Stage: For example, if the price rises by 30%, but the number of wallets/accounts increases only by 5% → Chips have not distributed, and a few people are manipulating the price.

Distribution Stage (most dangerous): Price is stable or slightly declining, but the number of wallets/accounts increases (sometimes also reflected in the long/short ratio) by 20% → The whale is slowly selling to retail investors at high prices, making it seem like "the community is growing," but in reality, the whale is retreating.

Already Left Stage: Price has fallen, and the number of wallets/accounts hasn't decreased → Retail investors are trapped, and the whale has completely sold out.

2. What to do after reading?

Okay, you have spent time confirming that there is a whale, and it is still in the xxx stage. Then what? Switch to another? If you switch again, there is still a whale. Because—

3. The Whale is Not a Bug; The Whale is the Underlying Structure of This Game

What makes a token rise? Driving the market requires two things: chips + funds. When these two combine, it is called pricing power. If chips are not concentrated sufficiently, no one has the motivation to drive the market.

Chip concentration is not a conspiracy; it is a prerequisite for market dynamics. Without whales, there is no market.

4. What does the Whale use to Win Against You?

Pricing power is merely an entry ticket. What enables whales to win consistently is their trading methods, which are completely different from yours. You rely on intuition, while whales use systems.

Whale’s cost awareness: Calculate the benefits of pumping and dumping; do it if the expected value (EV) is positive. Retail investors operate based on screenshots.

Whale’s probability thinking: Continuously adjusts probabilities and positions. Retail investors repeatedly bet.

Whale’s psychological manipulation: Create FOMO and leverage sunk costs to make you hold onto losses.

Whale’s tool advantage: Can hedge, has cost/information advantages, and operates at dimensions and error tolerance levels that overwhelm retail investors.

5. So how can Retail Investors Win?

In the whale's home turf, under the whale's rules, retail investors cannot win. Information, tools, and psychology are all asymmetrical. However, there is one asymmetry that can be broken.

6. The Biggest Structural Defect of Retail Investors: They Can Only Go Long

When there is no perp (perpetual contract), whales can also only go long, but they do not need to short. The reason lies in costs.

Whales' chip costs are so low that they approach zero (gas fees or very low early prices). Even if it drops 90%, they still make a profit, just "less profit." Ultra-low costs give them significant error tolerance.

However, retail investors are chasing highs during the FOMO phase, and their costs may be 50 times that of whales. Your cost structure prevents you from enduring drawdowns. Retail investors lack shorting tools and a low-cost safety cushion. The only scenario where they can make a profit is when they buy and the price rises, selling before it drops.

One direction, one window, with almost zero tolerance. This is structural unfairness.

7. What If Retail Investors Could Also Short? This is the Purpose of youcanshortit.com

When the signal points towards the distribution stage and false prosperity—you do not just "run away quickly," you can open a short, turning the whale’s distribution into your profit. When the truth returns, you can stand on the profitable side. Your analytical abilities will finally not be wasted.

8. Mechanism Perspective: With Shorting Rights, Can Retail Investors Control Pricing Power?

Let’s directly state the conclusion: No, they cannot.

The formula for pricing power is always: chips + funds. The essence of retail investors is a group with decentralized capital and fighting individually. No matter how sophisticated the mechanism, it cannot turn a pile of sand into a cannon. However, introducing decentralized spot leverage and lending protocols like youcanshortit.com is not to make retail investors "become whales," but to break the "absolute monopoly" of whales over pricing power.

From a mechanistic breakdown, it reshapes the structure across three dimensions:

1. Creating "Sell Orders" out of Thin Air, Removing One-Sided Control

In a pure spot market, if the whale does not sell, there is no selling pressure; they can pump by shifting left hand to right. But after the introduction of shorting mechanisms, retail investors can use excessive collateral to borrow tokens and sell them on the market, turning originally "locked" dead chips into active sell orders. This forces the whale's upward movement to incur real funding costs. If whales want to continue to pump, they must use real money to take on the sell orders created by shorts.

2. Symmetry of Price Discovery: Piercing "False Narratives"

In the past, discovering that whales were distributing or debunking narratives, retail investors could only "not buy," with bad news failing to reflect in price drops. The shorting mechanism allows retail investors to transform "negative information" into substantial sell orders, making price trends no longer a game of one-sided lines drawn by whales, but rather the actual results of long and short battles.

3. Transitioning from "Chickens" to "Hunters"

Shorting platforms actually accelerate the life cycle of meme coins. This mechanism cannot turn you into the whale who sets the rules, but it changes retail investors from "being beaten-up bag holders" into "hunters with guns."

9. But Shorting is Not a Panacea—The Risks You Must Know

Shorting meme coins carries a high risk, with potential losses theoretically unlimited. Whales excel at short squeezes. They deliberately pump prices to trigger short squeezes, driving up prices further with your liquidation funds. The timing can be wrong, and even if the direction is correct, it's still a loss. Additionally, low liquidity and high slippage make shorting costs very high.

Shorting is not "understanding it means you can profit"; it gives you an additional directional choice. You still need to control your position and set stop-losses. Shorting turns you from "chips" into "players," and players can also lose—but only with more dignity.

Finally

This article teaches you not "how to avoid whales," but to help you understand:

Whales are everywhere; do not look for "coins without whales," the key is to judge which stage the whale is in.

The greatest disadvantage for retail investors is a singular direction. Whales have low-cost safety cushions, while you do not. Understanding when prices rise allows profit, but understanding when they fall only allows you to run away—this is unreasonable.

The right to short is the final piece in the puzzle for retail investors to transition from "being harvested" to "getting on the table."

It is a weapon, not a talisman. Even if this gun has risks of backfiring, having a gun versus not having one represents two completely different levels of competition. What we need to do is "arm ourselves equally," allowing retail investors to short.

One more thing

If you're excited to try this after reading, youcanshortit.com may have suitable targets for you to practice.

For example: (on Bnbchain Pancake swap)

WALK (ca:0x9234e981e395dA3BE7b00B035163571698f8f756)

Current market cap is 1.6m

Chip structure:

57% Pancake liquidity pool (v3)

0% Creator (Dev)

40% in the youcanshortit.com vault (available for everyone to short)

3% Pancake liquidity pool (v2)

Note: Trading involves risks, proceed with caution. DYOR.

Go (ca:0x0a5D8c6D776A5903Bc568f41aADEeb4c71D2FFba)

Current market cap is 550k

Chip structure:

58.6% Pancake liquidity pool (v3)

0% Creator (Dev)

40% in the youcanshortit.com vault (available for everyone to short)

1.4% Pancake liquidity pool (v2)

Whether you want to seize pricing power, experience taking advantage of whales, play the role of a whale, or participate in a different community experiment, let’s together experience the transition from "chickens" to "hunters" in this defensive-offensive rotation～

Give everyone 72 hours to prepare～

Note: Trading involves risks, proceed with caution. DYOR.

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