In the wild world of crypto launches, transparency is key, but sometimes things get murky. That's exactly what's happening with Edel Finance and their $EDEL token, according to a bombshell thread from Bubblemaps, a platform specializing in visual on-chain analytics. They claim the team behind Edel sniped a whopping 30% of the token supply right at launch and tried to cover their tracks with a web of wallets and liquidity tricks. Let's break it down step by step, keeping it simple for anyone dipping their toes into blockchain drama.

Edel Finance positions itself as a lending protocol for tokenized stocks and real-world assets (RWAs)—think borrowing against digital versions of traditional investments. It gained buzz thanks to team members reportedly from big names like J.P. Morgan and Airbnb. Earlier this month, they dropped $EDEL, their governance token, but Bubblemaps alleges the launch wasn't as fair as it seemed.

Just before the launch, around 60 wallets got funded from Binance, the massive crypto exchange. These wallets shuffled ETH through multiple layers before using the final ones to snipe—meaning they bought up tokens in the very first moments of trading, often at rock-bottom prices. Together, they grabbed 30% of the supply, now valued at about $11 million. Bubblemaps shared a visual map showing these connections, making it easy to see the clustering.

But here's where it gets clever—or shady, depending on your view. Each sniper wallet only kept half of what they bought. The other half went to a secondary cluster of 100 wallets, all funded by MEXC, another exchange. And get this: the addresses for those secondary wallets were hardcoded right into the token's smart contract creation code. That's like leaving fingerprints at the scene, linking the team directly to the snipers.

To obscure things further, both the snipers and secondary wallets used a sneaky tactic: they created Uniswap liquidity pool (LP) positions, which are like NFTs representing shares in a trading pool. They'd send these NFTs to new wallets and then "burn" them—destroying the NFT to reclaim the underlying tokens on fresh addresses. This breaks the obvious links in standard blockchain explorers, but tools like Bubblemaps can still map it out.

Even the team's own wallets, like the token deployer (address starting with 0xfe6A) and another (0x007a), pulled the same move. They created LPs, transferred NFTs, burned them, and then dumped tokens for a quick $120,000 profit. Notably, these didn't snipe but still used the obfuscation playbook.

Bubblemaps reached out to an Edel co-founder, who claimed no knowledge of sniping. Meanwhile, they've opened a case on their Intel Desk, where users can vote with $BMT (Bubblemaps' token) to highlight it.

The plot thickened when Edel's co-founder, James Sherborne, jumped into the replies. He admitted the team acquired about 60% of the supply but said it was placed into a vesting contract as per their docs. He invited dialogue, noting Bubblemaps hadn't reached out directly.

Bubblemaps fired back, calling it a weak defense akin to other controversial launches. They pointed out the sniping wasn't disclosed anywhere—not in docs, Telegram, or Twitter. The vesting contract held 50% from the deployer, unrelated to the snipe. Some snipers had already sold off, and the deployer dumped too. They accused Edel of spamming replies to deflect.

This kind of drama highlights why on-chain transparency tools are game-changers in crypto. For meme token enthusiasts and DeFi users, it's a reminder to dig deep before diving in. If you're tracking $EDEL or similar projects, keep an eye on Bubblemaps for more visuals that cut through the noise. What's your take—fair play or foul?