Lesson 05 · Unit 7 · Solana
The lifecycle
Studies of launchpad tokens converge on brutal numbers: the overwhelming majority never graduate, most that pump retrace within a day, and among tokens that end in a rug, the rug lands inside the first day far more often than the first week. Published medians vary with how each study defines a rug, so treat the shape as the lesson and not the decimal. When the pull comes there is no window at all — removing liquidity is one transaction, confirmed in one block.
Hour 0
Mint. Bundler seeds 'demand', snipers pile in
Hours 1–6
Hype cycle: X threads, Telegram raids, washed volume
Hours 6–20
Peak. Insiders distribute into the crowd's buying
Inside day one
The rug — where most of them land
One block
Liquidity gone. Chart flatlines at zero
< 24h
is where most launch-to-rug timelines land
< 1s
for the pool to empty — one transaction, one block
≈1%
of launches that ever graduate at all
What the clock means for you
The median token you meet 'early' has most of its life behind it and a rug ahead of it. Being early is not an edge when the whole lifecycle fits inside a day — being informed is the edge. A day is plenty of time to run one scan.
Where this goes next
The last phase has a name and a mechanism — and the whole cycle is one long argument about who sets the price.