Bundling is how most of the money is made on Solana launchpads, and it is the single most useful thing to be able to recognise.
A bundled launch is one where the creator, or wallets they funded, buy a large share of the supply in the same block the token is created. Everyone who buys afterwards is buying from them.
Over one measured month, more than half of pump.fun tokens were sniped in the block they were created. Applying a strict test, that the sniping wallet had received SOL directly from the deployer before launch, still identified over 15,000 tokens and 4,600 wallets, taking more than 15,000 SOL in realised profit, with 87 percent of those snipes profitable. Of those wallets, 55 percent had fully exited within one minute and 85 percent within five.
The bonding curve prices each buy against the ones before it. At the start of the curve, every 1 SOL that lands ahead of you raises the price about 6.8 percent, and 5 SOL raises it around 36 percent. Wallets in block zero hold the cheapest inventory that will ever exist for that token. They do not need the token to succeed. They need somebody to arrive.
Concentration is not a pure warning sign. In an academic sample of tokens that returned more than 100 percent, 82.8 percent showed artificial growth and the top ten holders averaged 77.9 percent of supply. The tokens that move are frequently the ones that are controlled. Recognising a bundle tells you who you are trading against, not that the price will not rise first.