I participated in a pump and dump scheme so you don't have to

Last year I somehow discovered a Discord pump channel that coordinates pumps of random coins every few months depending on market conditions. I had been watching their pumps for a while last year during the bull run when things were good. They were seeing 400% pumps within minutes of announcing the coin. Its been a while since one was performed and I got a notice recently of an upcoming pump, so I decided to take the plunge.

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These pump and dump schemes are incredibly risky and often end up leaving folks with a large bag of whatever coin it happens to be and nobody left who will buy it once the price has corrected close to where it was before it pumped. I wasn't willing to risk much so I only threw a small amount of money at it to avoid being stuck with a large bag.

Timing is key, I had discord opened on my laptop and Kucoin (this pump group operates exclusively on Kucoin) opened on my phone, with market buy selected and the coin searchbar opened and my keyboard opened as well. I was fairly certain every second was going to count, because the people who organize this pump obviously make their purchases before they announce the coin and then sell when they tell everyone else to buy. The coin they plan to pump was announced at 17:00 and as you can see here:

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https://preview.redd.it/b3infsdahdr81.png?1187&format=png&auto=webp&s=30da82b504c5d26be39096d064029e52cabba865

at 16:59 the organizers make their purchase and the very next minute they announce the coin and you can see the result. Here are my trades that executed:

https://preview.redd.it/e9x2p52gidr81.png?1238&format=png&auto=webp&s=99fa3006dded8eab8e08c6b09f12b9a7dafcc42a

As you can see, I placed my $100 USDT buy order 10 seconds after announcement; sooner would have been better but entering my Kucoin trade password cost me valuable seconds. I watched the pump for less than a minute and market sold 44 seconds after my purchase for a nice 141% profit, not bad!

Now you may have noticed that the coin has maintained a price that is still nearly 50% above where it was before the pump. Why is this? My guess is the folks that bought at the beginning of the pump and tried to hold for larger numbers only to watch it drop within minutes are now left with their bags full, trying to sell at break even prices or even a small loss but nobody is buying, volume has completely flattened.

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So what's the takeaway? If you choose to participate in one of these pumps do not use money you aren't willing to lose, because of limited volume and participants there is a VERY good chance your market sell order will not be completely filled! This is not financial advice and is basically gambling, please do not join one of these pumps thinking you can win the lottery, you can be left holding a rapidly depreciating asset with nobody willing to buy. I got lucky this time!