Investigator: LAB Insiders Hold 95% of Token, Caused $6B Pump

Blockchain investigator ZachXBT published an on‑chain investigation Thursday alleging that insiders control more than 95% of the LAB token supply and worked with an unknown market maker to drive a surge that valued the token at roughly $6 billion on a fully diluted basis.

ZachXBT identifies LAB’s founders as Vova Sadkov and a co‑founder known as Mark. The token generation event took place in October 2025. Public backers named in the investigation include Lemniscap, OKX, Animoca, GSR, Gate, KuCoin, Mirana and Amber; several of those firms list LAB for trading.

The investigator noted inconsistent circulating supply figures from analytics providers, and said LAB’s documentation does not provide a clear breakdown of float or ownership. The report states that the lack of consistent public data left retail holders unable to verify how much supply was available to trade.

ZachXBT outlined on‑chain links and off‑chain arrangements that he says concentrated supply with insiders. He flagged a private loan contract carrying a 7.5% monthly interest rate for six months, signed by Sadkov on behalf of The Lab Management Ltd., a British Virgin Islands entity, with repayment by default due in LAB tokens at market price. The borrower wallet tied to that contract is the same address LAB used for public buybacks and is connected to a separate loan on Wildcat, the investigation says.

Funds tied to LAB were traced to exchange accounts on Bybit and Gate that the investigator identifies as linked to Sadkov. ZachXBT also traces deposits to those accounts from an earlier project, Eesee, which investors said was left when the team shifted focus to LAB.

The report says LAB’s team altered public sale terms for some participants, changing a vesting cliff from three months to nine months without participant consent. It also states that some content creators waited months for promised marketing payments with no explanation from the team.

The investigator alleges a substantial hidden supply distributed through over‑the‑counter deals. From January 2026, the report says co‑founder Mark solicited OTC buyers in a public Telegram group. A WhatsApp pitch document described loans at 5% monthly, OTC allocations sold at a 60% discount with a five‑month cliff, and a guaranteed 25% discount tranche recalculated monthly. A later offering for key opinion leaders was described at an 80% discount with staggered unlocks contingent on promotional posts.

On market activity, ZachXBT says insiders deposited roughly 226 million LAB to Bitget addresses between March and April 2026, where the tokens remained until about 100 million LAB was withdrawn in early May. From May 11 to 12, nearly 100 million LAB — about $482 million at the time — moved from Bitget to ten addresses identified in the thread. The investigator links the transfers to a market maker operation he says used a similar pattern on other tokens and ran primarily through Bitget, with Binance and Gate as secondary venues.

The report calls out a signer on several LAB team multisig wallets who received funds from an insider the investigator links on‑chain to a previous token manipulation. That insider is reported to have received more than $12 million in RIVER tokens to two centralized exchange deposit addresses.

ZachXBT urged Bitget, Binance and Gate to freeze alleged insider proceeds and redistribute them to users or to delist the token. He wrote that he has paid $1,500 toward a $10,000 bounty he posted to encourage further on‑chain research.

The thread drew community reaction. One commenter wrote, “You are just bringing more attention than these coins ever had before,” arguing the exposure could increase liquidity rather than deter speculative trading.

In closing, ZachXBT included a caveat that his findings are not a recommendation to short LAB, noting the extreme concentration of supply could affect market moves in either direction.