Unchained Promises: How Twitter ICOs Redefined Risk on Solana

In early 2024, a peculiar frenzy swept through Solana’s memecoin community: unknown teams were raising tens of millions of dollars in unofficial “presales” via Twitter. Investors, lured by viral marketing and celebrity hype, sent SOL directly to personal wallet addresses – no smart contracts or escrow, just trust. Two emblematic projects, $WATER and DooDoo, epitomize this phenomenon. Both were promoted heavily on X (Twitter) as Solana-based ICOs (initial coin offerings), promising outsized returns and even altruistic missions. But what really happened after the SOL poured in?

We present two case studies: $WATER, a charity-themed memecoin that raised an astonishing $40M+, and DooDoo, a self-described “shitcoin” with a cross-chain twist. Each case study examines the project’s presale mechanics, wallet flows, token distribution, price performance, and investor outcomes, contrasting promises vs. on-chain reality. We close with a conclusion that distills insights on the risks of this new ICO model – from rapid price collapses to transparency issues – and offers practical recommendations for future participants.

Twitter Presales – Hype, Trust, and a New ICO Model

In traditional ICOs, investors typically send funds to a smart contract that automatically issues tokens or refunds based on set rules. By contrast, the Solana Twitter presales of 2024 operated on pure trust: project promoters would post a Solana wallet address on Twitter and claim that anyone sending SOL would later receive new meme tokens. No escrow, no formal agreements – just FOMO-driven trust.

This model exploded in popularity on Solana around March 2024, when a meme token called The Book of Meme (BOME) ran a presale that returned 50x (5,000%) at launch. The BOME success kicked off what on-chain sleuth ZachXBT dubbed a “pre-sale mania” that raised roughly $150 million in one week across dozens of personal wallets.

Observers were stunned. Why would thousands of people send cryptocurrency to an anonymous wallet with no guarantee of token delivery? The answer lies in a perfect storm of context: Solana’s low fees and fast transactions lowered the barrier for launching tokens, while viral marketing on Crypto Twitter created a sense of urgency and community trust. Influencers hyped these presales as the next chance to “ape in” early on a 100x gem. As CryptoBriefing reported, investors were effectively gambling on social credibility: “funds are sent to a regular user’s wallet… users must trust that the tokens they paid for will be sent”.

However, this model has many problems. It involves giving large amounts of money to unregulated wallets, which raises worries about scams and rug pulls. Indeed, within a month of the mania, at least 12 of the Solana presale meme coins were abandoned after raising over 180,650 SOL (≊$26.7M). One scammer impersonating a prominent trader vanished with ~$2.5M in SOL. Another infamous case saw a developer claim he “accidentally burned” the presale tokens of his project (aptly named SLERF), leaving investors with nothing.

These incidents underscore a fundamental conflict: the absence of technical safeguards versus the potential for outsized gains.

In this setting, $WATER and DooDoo became two of the most talked-about Solana presales. $WATER claimed to have a charitable impact and was backed by global celebrities. Could a meme coin really combine viral hype with good causes, or was it just a smart way for insiders to make money? DooDoo, meanwhile, used a funny brand (“we are all sh*tcoins”) but hinted at technical innovation by launching on Solana and Aptos at the same time. Did this approach make DooDoo stronger, or just more risky? By looking closely at these two examples, we hope to reveal the hidden workings and effects of Solana’s Twitter ICO trend.

ICO Case Study: $WATER – Charity Memecoin or Whale’s Paradise?

Context: A Meme Coin with a “Mission”

$WATER launched with grandiose branding as “the biggest charity meme coin in crypto history.” Its website and promotional materials framed it as a mission-driven token that would fund clean water initiatives and global research.

“Our token exists to ensure fair asset redistribution among holders while also supporting charitable causes,” proclaimed the official site. The team touted unique tokenomics tied to water’s states (freezing for staking, vaporizing for burning) and repeatedly emphasized a “net-positive impact on the real world” via charity. This narrative set $WATER apart from the usual meme coin shtick – or so it seemed.

Hype for $WATER’s presale was amplified by a well-coordinated social media campaign. On June 21, 2024, the project’s Twitter account announced “WATER Presale on Solana starts 3 PM UTC” with a presale hard cap of 55,555 SOL. In reality, the hard cap did not hold; demand was tremendous. Influential crypto personalities on X jumped in to promote, and within minutes the presale wallet was flooded with SOL.

Blockchain records and third-party analyses indicate that about 200,000 SOL poured in within the first minute. Five minutes later, over 300,000 SOL had been sent, equivalent to ~$40 million.

By the time the presale closed, ~317,883 SOL was raised from more than 26,000 unique wallets – an unprecedented scale that “could potentially make Water one of the largest memecoin presale to date”.

Why did $WATER attract so much interest? Part of the allure was FOMO from previous Solana meme successes like $BONK and $BONE, but $WATER’s team also leveraged celebrity marketing. In early July 2024 – just after the token generation – football legends Lionel Messi and Ronaldinho posted about $WATER on social media, sending the community into a frenzy.

Messi’s Instagram story featuring $WATER (to his 500M followers) and a tweet by Ronaldinho created a viral sensation. On July 8, 2024, as these endorsements hit, $WATER’s price skyrocketed nearly 400% in three hours (Water (WATER) meme coin soars by 120% after viral Messi post). It became a trending search on Google and its market cap briefly catapulted to stratospheric levels.

But behind the exciting marketing and big launch, there were signs of trouble. The project's charity claims were very unclear. The website mentioned “global charity and research initiatives” but didn't give any details or transparency about how the money would be used or which charities would benefit.

During the presale, there was no wallet or smart contract specifically for charity, and no clear donation plan was shared. This led to an important question: Was the charity angle real or just a way to attract investors who care about giving?

Moreover, even as public buyers were waiting for their token distribution, on-chain analysts noticed something troubling: a handful of insider wallets appeared to control a massive portion of supply right after launch. This is where the absence of a smart contract escrow (and the presumed manual distribution of tokens) created an opaque situation – ripe for insider advantages. Let’s examine exactly what happened once trading began.

Conflict: Fund Flows and Insider Moves

$WATER’s trading went live around June 26, 2024 on both decentralized exchanges (like Raydium) and some centralized exchanges (Gate.io, MEXC, BitMart were quick to list it). Early trading was wildly volatile. In the first 24 hours, volumes exceeded $100M as speculators piled in. The market capitalization blew past $1 billion (on paper) at its peak, an extraordinary outcome given the project was barely days old. However, a series of unusual events accompanied this surge:

• Delayed Token Distribution: Many presale participants reported that they had not received their $WATER tokens by the time of the initial exchange listings. In fact, an X post by The Solana Post noted that $WATER “reached a market capitalization of over $1 billion before most presale participants received their tokens”. This implies the team (or a small set of insiders) still held the bulk of tokens when trading opened, allowing them to potentially sell at high prices while presale buyers were sidelined. Such a delay violates the spirit of a fair launch – essentially insiders could dump on a market pumped by hype that presalers themselves created.

• Insider Wallet Concentration: On-chain analysis via Bubblemaps revealed that a small cluster of wallets held roughly 30–35% of the total token supply shortly after launch (Water (WATER) meme coin soars by 120% after viral Messi post).

Bubblemaps, which graphically shows token holder relationships, flagged this as a major red flag, tweeting a warning: “Messi just promoted $WATER… 30% of the supply [is] controlled by insiders. Send it to zero.” (Water (WATER) meme coin soars by 120% after viral Messi post). In other words, despite claims of “fair asset redistribution,” the actual distribution was highly skewed. It appears the team and early insiders kept a large allocation (likely the tokens corresponding to the massive SOL raise). There was no evidence these tokens were locked or vested – indeed, their rapid sale would explain the swift price crash that followed.

• Outgoing SOL – Where Did $40M Go? Using Solscan and Arkham, we tracked transactions from the main presale deposit address (a Solana wallet that began with 3wGAD5RG...M3WC as advertised). Right after the presale, this wallet sent large chunks of SOL to a few other wallets. Some of those wallets, in turn, were linked to exchange deposit addresses. Arkham Intelligence, which labels entities on-chain, showed significant outflows from $WATER’s collection wallet to CEX (centralized exchange) accounts within days of the raise.

  

  While we cannot definitively identify the owners of those wallets, the patterns suggest that a portion of the funds was moved off-chain – potentially cashed out by the creators. Notably, we found no on-chain transfers to known charity addresses or nonprofit organizations. If charitable donations were made, they were not done transparently on-chain. This casts doubt on the sincerity of $WATER’s altruistic claims.

• Communication Breakdown and Warnings: As the token trading unfolded chaotically, the $WATER team’s communication was sparse. They celebrated burns claiming over 13 billion tokens burned to increase scarcity and hyped future “marketing pushes,” but did not address the community’s pressing concerns about distribution. Meanwhile, independent sleuths sounded alarms. Another X user, @yourfriendSOMMI, alleged that the individuals behind $WATER were the same team from previous Solana meme coins $BEER and $TEA, which had been accused of scamming investors of over $40 million.

  

  If true, this accusation suggests that the charity story might have been a planned trick by a group known for repeatedly launching memecoins. The $WATER team never responded to these claims on any official channel.

  The conflict was clear: $WATER promised trust and positive impact, but the facts showed secrecy and insider favoritism. The presale model allowed $40M of SOL to be collected without any accountability. With sudden fame from Messi's endorsement and delayed token distribution, it set the stage for a classic “pump-and-dump” – where insiders profit at the expense of latecomers and even those who believed in the presale

Resolution: Price Collapse and Investor Outcomes

The resolution to this saga, perhaps unsurprisingly, was painful for investors. After the initial euphoria in late June and early July 2024, $WATER’s price trajectory turned into a collapse from which it never recovered. Within 24 hours of its $1B+ peak, the market cap fell by 72% to about $22 million. Over the following weeks, as presale buyers finally got their tokens (many likely rushing to sell and salvage value), $WATER kept sinking. By mid-July 2024, the token was already down over 90% from its highs (Water (WATER) meme coin soars by 120% after viral Messi post). The hype dissipated as quickly as it had arrived.

Figure: $WATER token price from presale launch in June 2024 through April 2025. The price spiked to an all-time high (~$0.00278) around late June amid intense hype (Messi’s post), then crashed precipitously over the next month. By April 2025, $WATER traded around $0.00001 – over 99% below its peak, illustrating the boom-bust dynamic of the project. This chart highlights key events: the presale (raising ~$40M on June 21, 2024), the ATH on June 25, 2024 (market cap briefly ~$1B), the Messi-instigated rally on July 8, 2024 (+120% intraday (Water (WATER) meme coin soars by 120% after viral Messi post)), and the all-time low on April 7, 2025 (~$0.0000057).

Investors who bought in the presale at the equivalent of, say, ~$0.0005 (estimated from the presale ratio) and did not or could not sell during the brief spike essentially watched their holdings become nearly worthless. A few lucky or savvy traders might have profited – for example, anecdotal data on Twitter mentioned a trader who turned $2,000 into $2.9M in 20 minutes during the $WATER launch volatility. But those cases were the extreme exception. For the vast majority, $WATER was a rapid round-trip from buzz to bust.

What about the charity? Publicly, the team claimed to be executing on altruistic goals. They conducted a campaign called “#WaterFlowOfHope” in which they asked community members to donate to charities of their choice and share proof – arguably a clever way to crowdsource charitable acts without the team itself spending funds. There was also talk of weekly burns and donations from the token burn mechanism (25% of tokens burned were supposed to be donated to charity per their tokenomics). However, without transparency reports or on-chain evidence, these claims are hard to verify. As of this writing, there is no documentation of significant donations made by the official $WATER project to any charity. The likely scenario is that the “charity meme coin” narrative ended up as marketing theater, with little to no follow-through once the project’s price collapsed and the team moved on.

In summary, the $WATER case study reveals a pattern of massive initial trust and hype, followed by insider advantages and a collapse of trust. It underscores the importance of skepticism: even a token branding itself with humanitarian goals can mask classic speculative excess and opportunistic behavior. Next, we turn to our second case – DooDoo – to see if a different approach (and some technical finesse) led to a different outcome, or if it rhymed with $WATER’s story.

Additional Context: Water Coin Analysis

ICO Case Study: DooDoo – Cross-Chain Experiments with a Meme

Context: A Sh*tpost Coin that Bridged Solana and Aptos

In the 2024 Solana memecoin scene, DooDoo was unique for its playful honesty. Calling itself “we are all sh\tcoins”, DooDoo embraced the silly side. Its name and tagline hinted at a fun, not-too-serious approach. Surprisingly, DooDoo's launch was quite advanced: it started on *two blockchains – Solana and Aptos. The team’s Twitter bio said “Live on both @solana & @Aptos”. This cross-chain approach was rare for a meme coin presale and showed the team had strong developers, as deploying on Aptos, a Move-based chain, is more complex than on Solana.

The DooDoo presale on Solana launched around mid-March 2024, amid the same craze that fueled $WATER. The team’s promotional approach was classic: a tweet announced “Presale is LIVE – send SOL to [a wallet address]”, with terms: Minimum 0.1 SOL contribution; 49% of tokens for presale, 49% for liquidity, 2% for “IDK Bonus” (presumably a small extra reward for engagement). The use of 49/49/2 was a clever psychological play – implying no outright team allocation beyond that tiny 2%. Essentially, DooDoo marketed itself as a fair launch where the community would own almost all the supply and liquidity would be robustly funded. The presale wallet address (3wGAD5RG...m3WC) and the terms spread quickly on Crypto Twitter, with even specialized accounts tracking Solana presales sharing the deposit address.

Interest in DooDoo’s presale was high, though not $WATER-high. While exact figures are hard to pin down, Flipside Crypto data suggests the DooDoo presale address accumulated on the order of a few thousand SOL (for instance, 220 SOL was noted early on by one tracker, but it likely grew significantly larger). What is clear is that DooDoo did not reach the tens of thousands of SOL that $WATER did; it was one tier below in hype.

Part of the reason might be that Aptos is a newer chain, and some Solana-only investors were hesitant or confused about the cross-chain aspect. However, Aptos participation made up for it – DooDoo also raised funds or at least garnered significant liquidity on the Aptos side (which we’ll discuss shortly).

Despite its joke persona, DooDoo built up a community and even a touch of legitimacy by engaging with established projects. For example, Pontem Network (a prominent project in the Aptos ecosystem) took interest. Boris Povod, co-founder of Pontem, tweeted clarifications when DooDoo’s cross-chain moves caused confusion. At one point, a large transfer of SOL out of the presale wallet led some to fear a rug, but Boris stepped in to explain: “It’s not a hack. $doodoo is going cross-chain… all $SOL funds [are] going to a liquidity pool on Solana (LP will be burned). Doodoo has $3M liquidity on Aptos”.

This was significant: it implied the team used the SOL raised to create the SOL side of a liquidity pool, paired it with DooDoo tokens, and then burned the LP tokens (meaning the liquidity would remain locked in the pool forever, an anti-rug measure). If true, this demonstrated a more transparent and committed use of presale funds compared to $WATER.

On the tokenomics front, the promised allocation was straightforward and arguably fair: 49% to presale buyers, 49% to initial DEX liquidity, 2% presumably as a small incentive or held by the team for promos. No large team or VC reserve was stated. The total supply was 42 million DOODOO tokens, meaning roughly ~20.58M for presale, ~20.58M for liquidity, ~0.84M for the bonus. The team also capitalized on cultural moments – for instance, some marketing referred to “Baby Shark” (the children’s song) presumably as a meme tie-in, and generally kept the tone humorous.

With these pieces in place – a seemingly fair distribution, cross-chain liquidity, and a thriving shitposting community – DooDoo launched in late March 2024. It actually first gained price traction on Aptos, where liquidity was deep (as noted, ~$3M liquidity pool). Soon after, Solana trading picked up as well (though on Solana it was mostly on Raydium and had lighter liquidity).

Conflict: High Flying Price Meets Gravity

DooDoo’s initial trading was explosive. In fact, on March 22, 2024, DOODOO reached an all-time high of around $2.30 per token. Considering the presale price was likely tiny (if we assume they sold ~20M tokens for several thousand SOL, presale buyers could have been in at maybe $0.10 or less per token), early investors saw huge multiples on paper. DooDoo quickly garnered attention on Aptos forums and even centralized exchanges listed it in the following weeks (Bybit and Bitget added DOODOO trading, for example).

However, the conflict in this story is the inevitable clash between hype and fundamental value. DooDoo, for all its amusing marketing and fair launch ethos, was still a meme token with no inherent utility. Once the initial wave of buyers passed, there was little to sustain a $2+ valuation. And unlike $WATER, DooDoo did not have Messi or major influencers continually boosting it – it rode more on the general meme coin season.

The price chart tells the story of a classic boom-bust cycle, albeit stretched over a longer period than $WATER’s flash crash:

Figure: DooDoo (DOODOO) token price from March 2024 (launch) to April 2025. The token soared to an ATH of ~$2.3 in late March 2024, then steadily declined over the year. Key milestones: by June 1, 2024, price was around ~$0.8; by Oct 1, 2024, around ~$0.3; entering 2025, roughly $0.2; and finally hitting an all-time low of ~$0.09 on April 6, 2025. As of end of April 2025, DOODOO hovered around $0.12–$0.13 – roughly 94% below its peak. Despite the massive drop, DooDoo’s decline was more gradual than $WATER’s, indicating a slower bleed-out rather than a sudden rug pull.

Several conflicts and notable events occurred during this price downtrend:

• Liquidity and Bridging Issues: Operating on two chains meant arbitrage and liquidity management were critical. At times, the price of DOODOO on Aptos versus Solana diverged, causing arbitrage traders to move tokens across (using Wormhole bridge, for example). The team had to ensure enough liquidity on Solana’s side as well; if the Solana liquidity was too low, volatility there could be extreme. The claim that they burned the LP tokens on Solana for the initial pool is a positive sign (no rug via pulling liquidity), but it also meant they couldn’t later reallocate those funds. In essence, the $SOL raised was locked as SOL-DOODOO liquidity, and the team’s only remaining funds might have been whatever Aptos raise or small reserve they had. This could limit their ability to, say, fund development or marketing long-term – a trade-off of their fair-launch approach.

• Supply Distribution: Thanks to the transparent allocation, we can map the intended token distribution.

  

Figure: DooDoo Token Allocation (as promised by the team). The presale accounted for 49% of the 42 million supply, the initial liquidity pool on Solana got an equal 49%, and 2% was set aside as a bonus (likely for promotional giveaways or the team’s small reward). This distribution was advertised to investors to emphasize that nearly all tokens would be in public hands from day one, minimizing risk of large team dumps. On-chain data from Solana and Aptos largely corroborated this distribution: the top holders were the liquidity pool itself (a smart contract holding ~49% of supply) and a disperse set of presale buyers. Unlike $WATER, there wasn’t an obvious clique of insider wallets holding a third of the supply; DooDoo’s holder curve was more gradual. However, one must note that if any single presale buyer contributed a huge amount of SOL, they could still hold a significant percentage. We did see some evidence of concentration – for instance, one wallet (possibly an Aptos whale) appeared to hold a few percent of the total supply post-launch, indicating they bought a lot in presale. But this is far less concerning than 30% in insiders as in $WATER’s case.

• Community and Roadmap Delivery: Post-launch, the DooDoo team attempted to keep momentum. They launched an “OG NFT mint” as mentioned by Pontem’s Boris, likely to engage the community and perhaps set up a governance mechanism (“governance next, let’s burn millions” as the tweet hinted).

  

They also teased integration with Pontem’s Liquidswap DEX on Aptos, meaning DOODOO holders on Aptos might get some airdrop or rewards. These moves suggest the DooDoo team, unlike many meme coin teams, did not abandon the project immediately; they worked on cross-chain bridging (there’s a guide on bridging DOODOO from Solana to Aptos) and kept the community alive through 2024. That said, by early 2025, with the token price sliding under 10 cents, interest waned.

The central conflict for DooDoo boiled down to sustainability. Without a real utility or new influx of users, meme coins naturally decline once the hype cycle ends. DooDoo’s cross-chain gimmick earned it a strong launch but didn’t provide immunity to this fundamental challenge. Could anything have been done to avoid the collapse? Perhaps more aggressive token burns or developing some product might have helped, but those were not seriously undertaken. In the end, DooDoo, like $WATER, faced the gravity of market reality: valuation must eventually align with usage or value, and in pure meme coins, the value often asymptotes to the community’s size and engagement, which in bear market conditions tends to shrink.

Resolution: A Slow Burn, Not a Rug

By the one-year mark (March 2025), DooDoo was still technically alive – the team’s socials were quieter but occasionally active, and some holders simply kept the token as a memento or long-shot bet. Importantly, there was no rug pull event: liquidity remained in place (the Solana Raydium pool still had funds, and Aptos liquidity was still on Pontem’s DEX), and the team didn’t vanish outright. In the realm of meme coins, that counts as a mildly positive outcome.

For investors, outcomes varied based on timing:

• Presale buyers who sold near ATH made tremendous gains (e.g., selling around $2 from an entry that could have been $0.05–$0.10 if presale, hypothetically, yielding a ~20x–40x return). But selling at the top required either luck or foresight that the peak had arrived.

• Presale buyers who held through the year saw their paper profits evaporate. By April 2025, the price of ~$0.13 meant that even some presale buyers might be only slightly up or even at a loss, depending on their entry cost. Remember that the presale price wasn’t explicitly stated in USD, but if DooDoo raised say 5,000 SOL when SOL was ~$80 (just an illustrative guess), that’s $400k for ~20.5M tokens, pricing presale around $0.019 per token. In that scenario, $0.13 is still a nice ~6-7x. However, some presale buyers bought at higher valuations (presales were often tiered or people bought in after partial raises), so it’s hard to generalize. Many community members likely round-tripped like in $WATER’s case, not selling when it was above $1, and now sitting on heavy losses from the peak.

• Post-launch buyers: Those who jumped in during the hype (say buying at $1 or $0.5) were severely underwater by 2025. The gradual decline might have given opportunities to cut losses (unlike $WATER’s overnight crash), but many meme coin speculators hold out hope for a “next pump” that never materializes. For them, DooDoo was a slow bleed.

One interesting aspect: because the DooDoo team didn’t run off with funds (they locked liquidity), the risk was more traditional market risk rather than outright scam. In crypto, that’s an important distinction. DooDoo serves as an example that even if a presale is executed fairly and not a scam, investors can still lose big due to market forces. Honesty alone doesn’t guarantee profit; it simply removes one layer of risk (the rug-pull risk). The risk of overvaluation and speculative fervor remains.

In resolving the DooDoo story, there isn’t a dramatic “rug” chapter. It’s more of a cautionary tale about expectations. The token’s self-deprecating theme (“this coin is crap, haha”) might have been ironically fitting – eventually, it performed like, well, crap, from an investment standpoint. Yet, some community members continue to joke and bond over it, suggesting that not everyone measures success purely by price. For a subset of participants, the memecoin culture and camaraderie was the reward, and losing a bit of SOL was the price of that entertainment.

Additional Context: DooDoo Analysis

Conclusion: Lessons Learned and Practical Insights

The twin stories of $WATER and DooDoo offer a revealing microcosm of the Solana Twitter ICO era. Both started with exuberant crowds sending SOL into the void of a wallet address, fueled by dreams of outsized returns. Both reached heady heights – one through celebrity-fueled mania, the other through cross-chain novelty. And ultimately, both fell back to earth, leaving thousands of investors with losses and hard lessons.

Key Insights:

• Investor Risk is Extreme in Trust-Based Presales: Sending funds with no contractual safeguards is essentially paying for a promise. In $WATER’s case, that promise (of fair and charitable distribution) was largely broken – insiders gained the edge and investors were left holding the bag. Even in the more honest DooDoo case, participants bore 100% of the risk once they sent their SOL; there was no recourse if things went wrong. The lack of escrow or code means you rely entirely on the team’s integrity and competence. As one analysis put it, “this is a very risky type of investment… funds are not escrowed… no safeguarding – users must trust they will get the tokens”. Unfortunately, many learned the hard way that such trust can be misplaced or simply not enough to guarantee returns.

• Boom-Bust and Price Collapse Patterns: Both tokens followed a boom-bust trajectory, albeit on different tempos. It starts with a feverish pump (driven by hype, FOMO, maybe orchestrated insider activity) and inevitably transitions to a brutal dump. $WATER’s collapse was almost immediate – within days of launch the price imploded by over 90%. DooDoo’s collapse was slower but ultimately just as deep in percentage terms. This pattern mirrors many other Solana meme coins from that period. In fact, data from Bitget’s research highlights that millions of newly issued tokens have failed since 2021, and the first quarter of 2025 alone saw 1.8 million tokens effectively die, many from the 2024 “Pump.fun era” of Solana memes. Investors need to recognize that fast rises often precede fast falls, especially when fundamentals are scant. If you’re sitting on a 10x or 50x gain in a matter of hours or days, consider that an anomaly and de-risk by taking profit.

• Tokenomics Transparency (or Lack Thereof): $WATER and DooDoo demonstrate two extremes of tokenomics handling. $WATER preached fairness but had hidden insider allocations (evidenced by 30% supply in a few wallets (Water (WATER) meme coin soars by 120% after viral Messi post)). DooDoo explicitly set a near-equal playing field and largely stuck to it, with provable liquidity locking. The lesson is clear: scrutinize token distribution. If a project does not clearly outline who gets what – and when – assume the worst (e.g., a team could hold a majority and dump). Even if a distribution seems fair, verify it on-chain after launch. Tools like Arkham or explorer rich lists can show top holders. If, say, the top 10 addresses hold 60% of supply and none are known liquidity or smart contracts, that’s a major red flag. Inversely, a widely distributed token is safer from manipulation (though still vulnerable to market whims).

• Follow the Funds: A powerful advantage of blockchain is that you can track where money goes in real time. During any presale, one should watch the presale wallet. In $WATER’s case, if investors had monitored the wallet post-presale, they might have noticed large transfers to exchanges, hinting that the team was cashing out SOL rather than, say, reserving some for charity. Similarly, for DooDoo, seeing the SOL go into a liquidity pool contract (and the LP token being sent to a burn address) was a reassuring sign that they weren’t going to rug. These are nuanced signals, but they can be lifesavers. Arkham Intelligence now even allows tagging Solana addresses; a savvy participant could label the presale wallet and set alerts for big movements. If a project is genuinely using funds for development or liquidity, they will often announce what they’re doing; silent large transfers are usually not in your interest as an investor.

• Role of Social Media and Influence: Both case studies were amplified by social media, and that cuts both ways. The upside: information spreads quickly (e.g., warnings from Bubblemaps (Water (WATER) meme coin soars by 120% after viral Messi post) or ZachXBT can alert the community to issues). The downside: misinformation or hype spreads just as fast. Scam projects impersonated notable figures (as happened with a fake Ansem account raising $2.6M in SOL). Always cross-verify announcements. If Messi promotes a coin, ask why – in $WATER’s case it turned out Messi’s crypto partnerships likely enabled that promotion as a paid campaign, not organic support. In DooDoo’s case, community mods and external experts like Pontem’s team provided clarity during confusion – following those voices can help navigate chaos.

Practical Recommendations for Future Solana ICO Participants:

1. Conduct Rigorous Due Diligence: Treat a Twitter presale like you would an outright ICO investment in an unregulated environment. Research the team (if known), their past projects, and reputation. If names are not provided (as with $WATER, whose creators stayed anonymous), that’s a big strike – you’re betting on faceless entities. Check if the project has a website or whitepaper and assess if it’s all buzzwords or actual substance. Often, scam projects copy-paste generic language. For example, $WATER’s site had lofty claims but zero specifics on implementation (Messi, Ronaldinho Pump Water Coin But What's Behind The Solana Memecoin Phenomenon?) – a red flag.

2. Verify Token Holder Distribution Early: The moment a token is live, inspect the holder list (using Solana explorers or analytics). If you see anything concerning (like a “presale” that ended up sending a huge % to a single wallet), consider exiting immediately. As we saw, within hours of $WATER’s launch, outsiders could tell insiders held a lion’s share – those who caught that could have sold when liquidity was high. Don’t rely solely on what the team says the distribution is; confirm on-chain.

3. Track Fund Movements: As noted, watch the receiving wallet. If the presale address suddenly empties to an unknown wallet or splits into many wallets, be cautious. In some cases, teams might move funds to a secure treasury or multi-sig – which they should communicate. If they don’t say anything, assume shady motives. On Solana, you can use Solscan’s “account” page to see all outgoing transfers from the presale wallet. Large transfers to Binance, KuCoin, etc., mean the team might be cashing out (not inherently evil if they need to pay expenses, but if done before delivering the product or token, it’s suspect).

4. Assess Liquidity and Lock-ups: Check if the project is providing liquidity and whether that liquidity is locked. For instance, a project might say “we will lock liquidity for X months on [platform].” If they do, that’s one positive sign. Lack of locked liquidity means the team could remove liquidity, crashing the price. There are community-run trackers for liquidity locks on Solana; use them if available. DooDoo’s approach of burning LP tokens is one way to lock forever – see if others do something similar (but be aware not all burns are good – burning presale tokens like SLERF did by “accident” is catastrophic).

5. Be Ready to Act Fast: If you choose to speculate in these events, have a plan. Recognize that these are not buy-and-hold long-term investments; they are closer to high-stakes trades or gambles. Decide in advance your profit targets and loss cutoffs. For example, one might say “if it 5xes I will take out my initial and ride the rest, if it halves I’ll cut my loss.” Without a plan, emotions will run high and you can get caught in the rollercoaster (e.g., not selling at a 20x because you hoped for 100x, only to round-trip to 0x).

6. Use Analytics Tools: Leverage the same tools used in this investigation. Arkham Intelligence now supports Solana and can reveal connections (e.g., if the presale wallet was funded by another wallet with history – maybe the team’s previous project). CoinGecko/CoinMarketCap provide quick data on how concentrated trading is (if 90% of volume is one exchange, that’s a vulnerability). Solana Floor and community Twitter accounts often summarize red flags faster than any official source. In short, arm yourself with information; in this environment, information asymmetry is often what separates those who exit in profit from those left holding the bag.

7. Skepticism of Grand Promises: Lastly, maintain healthy skepticism. If a meme coin claims it will also solve world hunger or donate big to charity, demand proof or at least a credible plan. As seen with $WATER, claiming to donate is easy; actually giving money away is another matter. Until proven otherwise, assume that “charity” or “community” funds could just be marketing budget or personal profit. It’s not cynicism, it’s pattern recognition from countless similar stories in crypto.

The broader Twitter ICO trend on Solana seems to have cooled by late 2024 and 2025 (many participants got burned, and market conditions became less favorable). But the cycle may well repeat in the future – perhaps on other chains or with new twists. The lessons from $WATER and DooDoo are timeless: Don’t get swept away by the tide of hype. Understand what you’re actually buying (often nothing more than a chance to sell to someone else at a higher price), and never risk funds you can’t afford to lose in these speculative gambits.

In the end, the “things hidden since the foundation of blockspace” in these cases weren’t mystical at all – they were the age-old human pitfalls of greed, trust, and herd behavior, operating on the cutting-edge rails of blockchain technology. By shining light on the hidden patterns of fund flows and token distribution, we can better navigate the next wave of crypto innovation – or speculation – with eyes wide open.

Citations and Sources

We have used a range of sources to ensure accuracy and depth:

• References and Data Sources

  1. Primary On-Chain Datasets

  | Resource | Purpose | | --- | --- | | Solscan (https://solscan.io) | Block-by-block transaction and balance data for presale wallets, liquidity-pool contracts, and top-holder accounts on Solana. | | Arkham Intelligence (https://arkham.com) | Entity-labeled flow analysis for presale deposit addresses, exchange clusters, and large outbound transfers. | | Dune Analytics (https://dune.com) | Aggregated presale dashboards—e.g., Moonke Labs WATER Presale (Dashboard ID 1987780). | | Bubblemaps (https://bubblemaps.io) | Graph visualisation of token-holder clusters (supply concentration > 0.5 %). | | CoinGecko & CoinMarketCap | Historical OHLCV data, circulating-supply inflation curves. |

  *All UTC dates; raw datasets archived in project repository.

  2. Real-Time Discourse and Event Chronology

  • Twitter / X

    • Project accounts: @WaterMemeCoin, @doodoocoin—used for primary announcements (presale terms, token-burn events, charity claims).

    • Independent analysts: @SolanaFloor, @yourfriendSOMMI—used for fraud alerts, holder-map screenshots, and comparative trend commentary.

    • Presale-tracker bots (e.g., SOLPresaleSniper)—captured minute-level funding milestones.

3. Secondary Journalism and Industry Reports

4. Project-Authored Materials

• Water: Official website watersolcoin.wtf ; Bitget Insights post “WATER: The Meme Coin with a Mission”.

• DooDoo: CoinMarketCap profile “About DooDoo”; official medium post “Cross-Chain Liquidity and LP Burn Announcement” (17 Mar 2024).

These documents supplied the self-declared tokenomics and roadmap commitments against which actual execution was evaluated.

In conclusion, the story of $WATER and DooDoo serves as a warning in the ongoing development of blockspace innovations. This research, supported by on-chain data and recent reports, not only explains what happened in these two ICOs but also gives readers the tools and critical thinking needed to tell the difference between the next big success and the next big failure in crypto. In the unpredictable world of decentralized finance, sometimes the most valuable asset isn't SOL or memecoins, but knowledge.