Milliseconds to Millions: Snipers on Solana
Before diving deep into the article, let’s have a look at 2 facts about Solana.
Solana is fast.
It can handle over 50,000 transactions per second and confirms a new slot in about 400 milliseconds.
Solana is cheap.
Transaction fees are tiny often under $0.001 per trade
But what’s the significance of this for sniper bots?
The speed helps bots to look for new tokens or liquidity pools on decentralized exchanges and buy them in the first millisecond they’re live and the low fees makes all the hundreds of transactions just fractions of a cent each.
Just have a look at this graph and imagine if you would have bought at the start (the green dot represents buying) and sold at a high (the red dots represent selling)
Well, this is not an imaginary graph. It is the graph of the Official Trump token just after its launch. And this was done with a sniper bot.
In this report we will have a deeper look at what sniper bots are and how they work under the hood and their financial impact.
What is a Sniper Bot?
Think of a sniper bot as something that helps you to buy something before anyone else can.
There is no one size fits all when it comes to Sniper Bots. There are Token-Launch Sniper Bots that watch for the creation of a new liquidity pool on a DEX and instantly send a buy order the moment it opens.
Then there are NFT Sniper Bots which scan NFT marketplaces for NFTs that match your criteria say, a rare trait and buy it the moment they appear.
Arbitrage Sniper Bots watch prices across multiple DEXs and when they spot a price difference they buy and sell accordingly and MEV Sniper Bots target the order of transactions in a block to extract small guaranteed profits
This report focuses on token snipers. (I will be writing on Arbitrage Sniper Bots later in the coming weeks)
How do the token snipers work?
Before getting into who are the top token snipers in Solana, let us see the steps which are usually followed by a sniper token bot from spotting a new launch to executing the buy.
It starts with spotting new pools.
Bots use services like Helius’s enhanced Websockets to get instant alerts when their selected DEX program creates any new pool.
Next comes racing the network.
To act quickly bots use private or dedicated RPC nodes from providers like QuickNode or Alchemy.
They also use priority fees so that validators pick their trades first.
Now to building the trade.
Bots pack account creation, token approval, and the swap itself into one on-chain transaction. To cut critical time, bots often pre-build and partially sign transactions.
They set slippage tolerances just wide enough to handle rapid price swings, but tight enough to avoid overpaying.
Decoding the Low-Level instructions.
Many tokens and pools use Anchor. Bots fetch on-chain IDLs or program ABIs to parse logs exactly and for non-Anchor programs, bots decode raw instruction data themselves, spotting “initialize” or “mint” calls to trigger buys the moment liquidity hits.Avoiding Bad trades.
Bots often ignore pools below a set SOL amount to avoid illiquid traps.
They also scan token metadata or run code audits to skip tokens that block sells or drain liquidity.
Top Token Sniping Bots on Solana
While there are a lot of token sniping bots on Solana, let’s have a look at the top ones which have superior performance and are loved by the users.
Photon
One of the most used token-sniping bots on Solana. It simplifies token sniping into a one-click experience.
Its “Quick Buy” presets let you instantly commit 0.05 SOL or 0.1 SOL or any custom amount to any new liquidity pool. This cuts out the multi-step wallet flows.
It has a suite of filters that ensures you only see the projects that fit your criteria. When there are hundreds and thousands of tokens launched every single day, this is an important feature.
Axiom Trade
A relatively new player but is consistently the top platform in the last few weeks. They are backed by Y Combinator. It is interesting to see a web2 giant accelerator like YC backing Axiom. This shows the calibre of the team and the product.
Its flagship “migration sniper” automatically buys tokens the moment they migrate. say, from Pump.fun to Raydium.
Most important things is Axiom guarantees fills in under one block. They do so by running custom RPC nodes and a colocated order engine.
Similar to other bots, Axiom also bundles limit orders, DCA strategies and yields on idle SOL to offer a all in one DeFi solution.
Trojan Bot
Trojan Bot is a Telegram bot unlike the other which are web based platforms.
It is surprising that for only a telegram bot, it has lots of users.
It has two snipers Manual and Auto.
The manual sniper grabs tokens at launch, while the auto-Sniper automates every new listing based on your settings, freeing you from constant market monitoring.
BullX NEO
So we saw other players in this space are either web based or are telegram based bot. But BullX NEO combines the Telegram convenience with a full web dashboard.
It has a “Pump Vision” feed highlights tokens which will be listed soon. Another interesting feature is multi-wallet support that lets you deploy capital across accounts in milliseconds.
GMGN.AI
GMGN.AI is also a great sniping bot. But the focus is not just pure speed. They focus on deep research as well.
BONKBot
One of the first sniper bots on Solana. It is a Telegram based sniper bot and it is powered by Jupiter’s routing. They have processed over $10 billion in volume.
There are two sniping options in BonkBot, Speed and Precision
Speed:You commit top fees and bribes to win the race, regardless of market cap or risk
Precision: You pick the highest market cap and loss you’ll accept, and the trade only runs if both limits are met
What worked for bonk bot was that it streamed real-time launches alerts directly into Telegram. You can paste a contract address and execute a buy in a single message.
This type of simple UX was the driving factor when this space was nascent.
Sol Trading Bot
Another OG sniping bot on Solana. It is also a telegram based bot.
It aggregates liquidity across Jupiter, Orca, and Raydium, executing trades the moment pools open.
It is go to choice for users who want basic sniper functionality alongside broader automated strategies without much complexity.
Any Known Entities?
A handful of sophisticated users using sniping bots have repeatedly beaten regular traders to new token launches on Solana.
One of the most notable cases that happened recently is the sniping of the official Trump memecoin. There are few entities and individuals such as Naseem, YX, GrandFnF who regularly snipe token at the launch.
Solana’s Most Profitable Sniper
This address - 6QSc2CxSdkUQSXttkceR9yMuxMf36L75fS8624wJ9tXv bought 5.97 million TRUMP tokens ($1.09 million) in the very first block of its launch. And after splitting tokens across nine addresses, he eventually realized a net profit of ~$109 million from that single snipe.
This address has been traced to a pseudonymous trader called “Naseem.”
Now let’s see how he set up the snipe settings for Trump Snipe.
He paid around $80k in priority fees to ensure inclusion
Tried buying two hours before the official launch
The outcome was that he then snagged off TRUMP in the first second itself.
So to pull this off, a bot would have monitored unconfirmed transactions (the “mempool”) for the TRUMP liquidity-pool creation, then instantly submitted a buy order with a high fee to outpace everyone else.
Naseem has denied any insider advantage. He claims that he and his team spotted a Meteora-protocol address interacting with the TRUMP-USDC pool a day before launch. This implies a pre-launch data leak and Naseem using his sniping research skills and bots to get massive gains.
Follow-On LIBRA Purchase.
One of the split-off addresses used in Trump token sniping- cGxeYN6F7T9aELwjLPeL3hnJNscGU7EHg5CEsP4B3Hz used the TRUMP proceeds to buy $5 million of LIBRA exactly when President Javier Milei tweeted “How to buy LIBRA,” then sold within 40 minutes for a ~$500K gain.
This is a finding from Arkham that links the wallets.
Grand FnF & YX
Naseem is often linked with other entities such as Grand FnF & YX.
One of their recent snipe was $CANDLE tokens.
The Candle token was introduced through a fair launch. Fair launch is a process designed to give all participants an equal chance to buy tokens at the starting price without presales or exclusive early access.
But during this launch this group sniped large quantities of $CANDLE tokens as soon as they became available.
Sniped $400,000 worth of $CANDLE (roughly 3 billion tokens) and turned it into over $2 million in profit
Then they sold their holdings shortly after, causing dramatic price swings that defined the event.
The strategy was the same as Trump sniping.
Large SOL Deposits: Preparing wallets with significant SOL to execute rapid buys
Fund Splitting: Distributing tokens across multiple addresses to obscure activity and manage risk
Collaboration with Groups: Working within a network, possibly with nine members, as implied by the nine wallet splits in both snipes.
Other Sniped Tokens
Beyond TRUMP, the same group has made millions on other launches as well
$HAWK: ~$1 million
$ENRON: ~$3.9 million
$SHROOM: ~$8 million
Kelsier Ventures Wallets
Kelsier Ventures is one of the names tagged with the Libra scam.
Arkham has labeled 1000+ Kelsier Ventures addresses for on-chain tracking, including the wallet FS52oWvGn7gmo4fve1n8DPTfa84C5GH6fDhFoyZqRrcy (Announcements - Arkham).
These labels help reveal coordinated sniping patterns across multiple addresses.
Devs sniping their own tokens
While most research is on finding the famous snipers, even Devs snipe their own projects.
One of the addresss - HKTtUgFbXJu7CnHZWCQZvYsUMbdvhyvttwW6wCc161xx sniped $GMC, a new meme coin on Solana tied to Elon Musk’s tweet about Grok AI.
Sceptic, a trader associated with the wallet bought 46% of the coin’s supply (466 million tokens) right at launch. On-chain tracking points the finger that Sceptic is also the developer of the token.
He made around $177,000 in profits.
Financial fallout from token-sniping bots on Solana
Sniper bots can make or break a token launch.
They often scoop up most of the initial supply at the lowest prices, leaving manual traders to pay more or even face failed transactions.
Impact of Sniping Incidents
More than 99 % of people who bought Solana-based meme coins end up at a net loss. While there are many reasons for that, sniper-bot-driven volatility and immediate “dumps” are a big part of that.
Pump.fun manipulation at scale
Over a recent 30-day window, more than 15,000 Solana token launches on Pump.fun were manipulated by deployer-backed sniper wallets.
Pine Analytics estimates that 1.75 % of all token launches on Pump.fun involve sniper wallets seeded by developers themselves. It is an inside-job tactic to trap retail users
Since April, over one million new tokens flooded the market. Nearly 640,000 of them appeared on Solana, many as meme coins spun out to feed sniping bots and spike transaction fees.
Few of the High-Profile Meme-Coin Scandals
In the previous section, we saw how proficient snipers have sniped Official Trump tokens at the launch.
The $TRUMP token rocketed to about $73 per coin on launch and its market cap at $15 billion. Then plunged over 85 % to roughly $11. Late buyers lost billions as insiders and bots cashed out.
Now another example is the official Melania (MELANIA) token which is backed by Melania Trump. It shot to $13.50 at peak and then collapsed 96 % as sniper bots and insiders sold at the first chance, leaving retail with near-zero value.
Larger Effects
There is liquidity drain because of such incidents. Bots inflate launch prices, then sell into the open order book. The projects lose valuable liquidity, and token price support evaporates in hours.
There is an erosion of trust as well. When launches turn into automated profit schemes, genuine investors lose faith. Many projects now face questions about fairness and transparency long before a line of code is written.
Mitigation Strategies
So we saw how sniping bots are helping few users make millions whereas majority of the retail users goes into losses.
So I will try to categorize a few strategies that can be implemented to mitigate the effect of sniper bots.
Transaction Controls
Caps & Anti-Bot Checks
Many Solana DEXs now limit trades per wallet and block known bot patterns right at the exchange level. PrintDEX, for example, enforces both max-wallet and max-tx caps alongside anti-bot logic to curb automated snipes
Minimum Liquidity Thresholds
Projects can add a requirement of a larger initial pool (e.g. ≥50 SOL) so that bots can’t swing prices easily with small buys.
Dynamic Transfer Taxes
Using the SPL-22 “transfer-fees” extension, tokens can impose a tax on buys or sells during launch. That extra fee can cut into bot profits and slow down rapid-fire trades.
Contract & Timing Defenses
Trading Delays
A simple time-lock holding trades for 30–60 seconds after liquidity hits gives humans a fighting chance.
Transaction Cooldowns & Caps
Smart contracts can enforce a 10–30 second cooldown between buys from the same wallet and cap each purchase to a small share of supply (e.g. 1–2%). This stops bots from spamming tiny orders or gobbling up huge chunks in one go.
Hidden (Stealth) Liquidity Provision
Separating contract deployment from liquidity addition and then revealing the pool address off-chain or via commit-reveal. This means bots can’t pre-prepare transactions against a known address.
Launch & Distribution Strategies
Phased Liquidity Addition
Releasing LP in tranches (e.g. 25% at T=0, then 25% every 5 minutes) softens the initial spike and spreads bot activity over a longer period
Dutch & Batch Auctions
• Dutch auction: start at a high price and let it fall. The fastest trades no longer win the best price.
• Batch auction: collect orders for 30 seconds and then clear at a single price, nullifying speed edges.
Human-Proof & Randomization
CAPTCHA / Proof-of-Humanity Checkpoints
One way could be to insert a lightweight off-chain challenge (CAPTCHA, social‐sign-in, ZKP-human proofs) for the first tranche of buyers.
VDF + VRF Participant Selection
Run a short Verifiable Delay Function and then a Verifiable Random Function to lottery-select wallets allowed to buy in the initial batch
Conclusion
Solana’s combination of speed and low fees has opened the door for many sniper bots.
These automated bots monitor new token listings and vault in within milliseconds. By packing account creation, token approvals, and swaps into a single on-chain call, they seize tiny price windows that human traders simply cannot match. With private nodes and priority fees, they consistently secure the earliest fills on most launches.
On the surface, sniper bots showcase how technology can sharpen trading efficiency. They reveal gaps in price discovery and liquidity across decentralized exchanges, and some even sniff out arbitrage that vanishes in microseconds.
But for individual traders, this space is often brutal. Many find their orders stuck, fail, or settle at inflated rates. So only a few sophisticated actors repeatedly claim outsized gains. But the larger set of retail users are left sidelined.
Throughout this report, we peeled back the layers of how token snipers work. We also saw high-profile cases from the $109 million Trump token snipe to developer-backed launch manipulations on Pump.fun.
These events remove the liquidity and reduce the trust of people in new projects. This can leave long-term investors to avoid participating in the open markets.
Fortunately, the community is not standing still.
Many players are exploring strategies that aim to level the playing field, giving both builders and buyers a fair shot.
Moving forward, the focus should be on collaboration. Builders, traders, and platforms need to work together.
Understanding how bots operate helps identify risks before diving in. Education also plays a key role. Simple guides and clear documentation can explain launch mechanics. When more people grasp the process, token launches feel less like a mystery.
References
https://intel.arkm.com/
https://x.com/arkham/status/1891547114032791805
https://medium.com/coinmonks/sniper-bots-2bfa50b83a00
https://dev.to/vietthanhsai/how-to-build-your-solana-sniper-bot-1-26al
https://docs.chainstack.com/docs/solana-creating-a-pumpfun-bot
Thank you for reading. I hope this educational piece on Solana Token Snipers is worth your time. If you have any suggestions or want to discuss more, I am reachable on X & Telegram - @its0xRay