3 Trap Pools in 8 Minutes: DEPTH, HBET and 81% Fees
- DEPTH's main pool opened at 00:01:47; 90.2%, 81% and 5% fee pools followed at +2:27, +3:53 and +7:23, each with under $4 of liquidity
- HBET's graduated pool was surrounded by 81%, 20%, 70%, 5% and 66.66% pools within 8 minutes 43 seconds; HBET is -77.97% over 24h
- Our own research feed tracked DEPTH's 81% pool today. Trap pools don't just cost traders, they corrupt data
Degens fear rugs. Today's post is about a quieter trap: trap pools. Minutes after a token launches, someone opens a few Uniswap v4 pools next to it with 70%, 81% or 90% fees and a few dollars of liquidity. Nothing gets stolen from the main pool. The trap just waits for a trade to land in the wrong pool. Robinhood Chain handed us two fresh examples today: DEPTH and HBET.
Case 1: DEPTH, 3 pools in 8 minutes
| Pool | Created (UTC) | After main pool | Liquidity | 24h volume |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Depth/WETH (pons-v2 main) | 00:01:47 | — | $13,325 | $48,785 |
| Depth/USDG 90.2% | 00:04:14 | +2m 27s | $1.45 | $0 |
| Depth/WETH 81% | 00:05:40 | +3m 53s | $3.14 | $0 |
| Depth/USDG 5% | 00:09:10 | +7m 23s | $0.002 | $0 |
The main pool is busy: +291.71% over 24h, 364 buys and 187 sells, 212 buyers. The three trap pools hold under $5 combined. In the 81% pool DEPTH is priced at $0.00000546 versus $0.0000208 in the main pool, nearly 4x apart. In the 5% pool it's $0.0000000407.
The painful part: our own research feed fell for it today. The "new launches" entry for DEPTH points to pool 0x173e…8058, which is that 81% pool, reading $1.45 of liquidity and $0.0027 of volume. From the feed alone DEPTH looks dead. From the main pool alone it looks +291%. Neither is the full picture.
Case 2: HBET, 5 pools within 9 minutes of graduating
HBET is the token of hoodbet.game. The site shows contract 0xaaCA8CD0e85f7C7D9620Ca0eC49e87312522679E, which matches the on-chain address exactly (verified), and says the token was launched through the Pons launchpad.
| Pool | Created | Liquidity | 24h buys/sells |
|---|---|---|---|
| HBET/USDG (pons-v2 curve) | 00:28:20 | $0 | — |
| HBET/USDG (pons-v2-dex, graduated) | 00:28:33 | $8,963 | 31 / 91 |
| HBET/WETH 81% | 00:30:27 | $5.27 | — |
| HBET/USDG 20% | 00:32:40 | $7.42 | 0 / 4 |
| HBET/USDG 70% | 00:33:16 | $4.55 | 0 / 2 |
| HBET/USDG 5% | 00:37:10 | $59.12 | — |
| HBET/USDG 66.66% | 00:37:16 | $3.59 | 0 / 2 |
| HBET/WETH 77% | 09:33:57 | $0.72 | — |
The curve pool opened at 00:28:20 and the graduated pool existed 13 seconds later, an extremely fast graduation. Over the next 8 minutes 43 seconds, five more pools appeared. Forty-eight hours on, HBET is -77.97% over 24h, with 17 buyers vs 54 sellers and no trades in the last hour. The trap pools didn't cause the drop, but they show that someone was setting up extraction tools next to this token from minute one.
80%+ fee pools, four reports running
- Sep 13: five 80% fee pools around FRONTIER.
- Sep 14: FRONTIER, PAIREX and BANGERCAT sharing 81% / 83.037% / 80.19% (Sep 14 write-up).
- Sep 16: a cluster of 4.33% to 4.556% pools around WAIFU; re-checked today, WAIFU also has 70% (3m 46s after its main pool), 75% and 80% pools.
- Sep 17: DEPTH and HBET both show an 81% pool.
An unusual tier like 81% turning up on different tokens on Sep 14 and Sep 17 looks like a script's default setting. But without pool-creator address data I can't say it is the same people, only the same technique.
How trap pools take your money
- The fee itself. Swap $100 through an 81% pool and $81 stays behind as a fee for the pool's LP, which is usually whoever created the pool.
- Absurd prices. With a few dollars of depth, quotes are multiples away from the main pool, so any fill loses money.
- Polluted data. Data sites pick the wrong pool, and a new token looks dead or mooning, as our feed showed today.
Five-step checklist
- List every pool on GeckoTerminal or DexScreener, not just the first one.
- Check the fee tier. Normal tiers are things like 0.01%, 0.05%, 0.3% and 1%. Treat anything above 20% as a trap.
- Check liquidity. Ignore price and change readings from any pool under $100.
- Check creation time. Odd-fee pools that appear minutes after the main pool are the classic pattern.
- Compare prices before you trade. On the BigPump trade page, check the chart and the last traded price. If your quote is far off, stop. Don't crank slippage just to get filled.
How BigPump handles pools
A token launched on BigPump trades only inside its bonding curve before graduation. At about 4 ETH, the contract creates one Uniswap V2 pool and sends the LP tokens to the dead address. Creator tax is either off or one of four presets (1%, 3%, 5%, 10%), set in the token contract and shown on the trade page. None of that stops someone from opening extra pools on other DEXes after graduation, since anyone can create a pool on-chain, so the checklist above still applies. Mechanics: docs.
FAQ
Is a trap pool a rug pull?
Not the liquidity-pull kind. The main pool is untouched. Trap pools collect from trades that get routed to the wrong place, through high fees and bad quotes.
If I buy through an aggregator, can I be routed into a trap pool?
Sensible routing avoids pools with terrible quotes, but the risk rises with small orders, wide slippage settings or unreliable front ends. Comparing against the main-pool price before you confirm is the safest habit.
Who created the 81% pools?
That needs the address that sent each pool-creation transaction. Public aggregator data doesn't include it, and we haven't done address-level grouping yet.
BigPump is an independent project, not affiliated with Robinhood Markets, Inc. Not financial advice — memecoins can go to zero.
Disclaimer: memecoins are extremely volatile and most go to zero. This article is not financial advice. Do your own research and only spend what you can afford to lose.