A bubble map is a picture of who holds a token. Each bubble is a wallet, sized by how much of the supply it holds, and a line between two bubbles means those wallets have sent funds to each other. When a group of bubbles is tied together, that group is probably one person or team holding the supply through several wallets.
That's the whole idea. The rest of this guide is about reading one well, because a bubble map is easy to look at and easy to misread.
Why bubble maps exist
A token's holder list says "the top 20 wallets hold 30% of the supply." It doesn't say whether those are 20 different people or one person with 20 wallets. That difference decides whether a token can be dumped on you in one move.
Wallets are free to create, so splitting a big position across many addresses costs nothing. Moving money between them does leave a trail, and a bubble map draws that trail. It turns a flat list of addresses into groups you can see at a glance.
How to read a crypto bubble map
Read it in this order:
- Look for clusters, not big bubbles. One large bubble is often a liquidity pool, an exchange or a burn address. A tight cluster of medium bubbles is more interesting: several wallets that hold a lot together and are connected to each other.
- Add up each cluster. Ten wallets with 2% each is a 20% position. If one cluster holds more than the next ten holders combined, that's who controls the price.
- Check what the links mean. A line usually means a transfer between the two wallets. Wallets funded by the same source, or that sent tokens to each other right after launch, are rarely independent.
- Separate infrastructure from people. Exchanges, liquidity pools, bridges and routers touch thousands of wallets. A good map labels them, so they don't make unrelated holders look connected.
- Compare with the launch. A cluster that bought in the first blocks and still holds is a very different signal from a cluster that formed slowly over months.
Red flags on a bubble map
- One cluster holding a large share of supply, especially if its wallets were funded from a single source shortly before launch.
- Many fresh wallets with near-identical balances. Real buyers don't all buy the same amount.
- Holders linked to the deployer or to the wallet that added liquidity.
- A "community" that is one cluster. If the top 50 holders collapse into two or three groups, the holder count is not telling you much.
None of these prove a scam on their own. Teams sometimes hold their own supply openly. A bubble map shows you who really holds the token, so you can decide with that in mind.
Bubble maps vs bundles
A bundle is a group of wallets, usually controlled by one party, that buys a token together at launch so supply looks spread out. On a bubble map a bundle shows up as a cluster of wallets that bought early, were funded from the same place and hold similar amounts.
A bubble map is the picture; a bundle check is the verdict on one kind of cluster in it. Our walkthrough on how to check a Solana token for bundled wallets covers that side.
Make a bubble map for any token
Scanner draws bubble maps for Solana and Robinhood Chain tokens from a full scan, so each cluster comes with its funding trace, bundle groups are labeled, and exchanges and known KOL wallets are named on the map.
- Solana: paste a token mint into the Solana bubble map.
- Robinhood Chain: paste a token address into the Robinhood Chain bubble map.
- Wallets too: paste a wallet instead of a token to map who funded it and which wallets it is connected to.
Scans need a free account, which comes with 30 scans a month. If you want the same map on your own site, the Embed API serves it in an iframe locked to your domains.
FAQ
What does the size of a bubble mean? How much of the token's supply that wallet holds. Bigger bubble, bigger share.
What do the lines between bubbles mean? That the two wallets have transferred funds or tokens to each other. Connected wallets are more likely to belong to the same owner.
Is a big bubble always bad? No. The biggest bubbles are often liquidity pools, exchanges or burn addresses. Look for clusters of connected wallets instead.
Do bubble maps work for memecoins? Yes. They are most useful on new tokens, where a few wallets can hold most of the supply.
Are bubble maps free? Viewing a token's holders in the Scanner explorer is free. A full bubble map with funding traces runs as a scan, and every account gets 30 scans a month.
