The LAB token lost about 56% of its value after a wallet, which analysts say was initially funded by the project team, sold 18.4 million tokens through the Aster platform for approximately $18.3 million. On-chain researcher ZachXBT reported that the sell-off lasted about two days, during which time the price of LAB plummeted from $1.20 to $0.55.
The crash happened shortly before the start of the token airdrop. The project team explained the drop as the actions of large market participants, but ZachXBT linked the seller’s wallet to tokens previously distributed by the project itself.
Currently, this address still holds 81.5 million LAB. According to ZachXBT, the wallet’s activity has been tracked since April 2026. He also connected it to his May investigation, which discussed private token sales at a discount, supply control, lockup changes, and suspicious market maker activity.
ZachXBT Tracked 196 Million LAB Through Bitget and Aster
According to ZachXBT, in April a structure associated with the project received more than 196 million LAB tokens. On April 8, 100 million LAB were transferred to two Bitget addresses.
The second large batch arrived from April 23 to 25. Another 96 million LAB were sent to two other Bitget addresses.
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Later, from May 11 to 12, about 100 million LAB were withdrawn from Bitget and distributed across ten wallets. ZachXBT noted that there is no evidence in the trading history that anyone was able to accumulate such a large position on the open market. In his view, all these movements belong to the same structure.
Then, on July 10 and 11, the owner began transferring LAB to three Aster accounts. After that, the tokens began to be actively sold on the spot market of the decentralized exchange, which, according to ZachXBT, crashed the price by another 54%.
In his Telegram channel, the analyst stated that this wallet was initially funded by the LAB team, and then 18.4 million tokens were sold through it on Aster.
ZachXBT also criticized the largest exchanges.
“It is disappointing that Bitget, Binance, and Gate did not react and allowed such blatant market manipulation to the detriment of users.”
ZachXBT Investigation: Hidden Supply, Loans, and Discounted Tokens
Back in May, ZachXBT released an investigation into the LAB project. At that time, the fully diluted market cap of the token was estimated at about $6 billion, but the exact circulating supply remained unknown. CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap and RootData published different data, and the project documentation did not disclose how the supply was distributed. According to the analyst’s calculations, more than 95% of all LAB was controlled by insiders.
The LAB project was launched in October 2025 by Vladimir (Vova) Sadkov and Mark as a trading platform. Before that, they worked on the Eesee project with the ESE token. Some investors claim that after the launch of LAB the founders essentially abandoned the previous project.
Among the investors in LAB were Lemniscap, OKX, Animoca Brands, GSR, Gate, KuCoin, Mirana and Amber Group. Some of them simultaneously managed the platforms where the token was traded.
The investigation also states that the team changed the token sale terms on the Legion platform without approval. Initially, buyers were promised a three-month lockup, but later, according to a letter published by one of the participants, the period was increased to nine months.
In addition, some content creators said they waited months for payment for participating in advertising campaigns but never received a clear explanation.
ZachXBT also discovered one of the private financing agreements. According to its terms, the loan provided a yield of 7.5% per month for six months. The borrower was a company registered in the British Virgin Islands, The Lab Management Ltd., and the document was signed by its director Vladimir Sadkov. If the company could not return the money, the agreement allowed repayment in LAB tokens at market price.
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According to the analyst, the borrower’s wallet was also used for public buybacks of LAB. He linked this address to another wallet that appeared in the loan through Wildcat. In his version, LAB funds eventually went to exchange accounts presumably linked to Vladimir Sadkov. These same accounts previously received transfers related to Eesee, even before LAB appeared, and were also linked to his ENS name and NFT collection.
Private offers to buy LAB began circulating as early as January 2026. According to ZachXBT, Mark was looking for OTC buyers directly in an open Telegram chat. Other investors were offered terms via WhatsApp: loans at 5% per month, LAB purchases at a 60% discount with a five-month lockup, additional discounts up to 25% each month, and separate token batches 20% below market price.
One of the offers from KOL Capital provided an immediate 80% discount. Buyers were to receive half the tokens on August 14 and the other half on September 15. At the same time, they were required to regularly publish posts supporting the project, or they could be blacklisted.
In ZachXBT‘s opinion, such deals created hidden pressure on the market. While ordinary investors were unaware of future unlocks, insiders received tokens at increasingly favorable prices as LAB‘s value rose.
