Projects like $RIVER and $pippin operate far beyond simple pump-and-dump schemes. They typically function as follows: first, they rally the strength of the English-speaking community to call for buy-ins, establishing long positions. Then, they use on-chain high-control tactics to create a visual effect of a small horse pulling a big cart. When negative fee rates appear, they start attracting retail investors to chase longs at high levels, creating bagholders for the main players to exit. Afterwards, they may establish short positions (although at a higher cost, not necessarily every time), and finally, they execute a harvest through on-chain sell-offs in a free-fall manner, cycling repeatedly.

In terms of position size, operating a shell coin with a market cap ranking around 50 doesn't require much capital—20M to 30M is enough. Why? Because in the early stages of building a position, the basis is extremely low, which precisely reflects the true direction of the main players (whether project teams or consensus speculators).

So what should retail investors do? The safest approach is to follow the main players' rhythm: go long during positive fee rates, go short during negative fee rates. Don’t rush to do the opposite. The reason is simple—shorting costs are much higher than going long, and truly large short positions are rare. The main players’ strategy is to exploit this by repeatedly harvesting retail investors to achieve profits far exceeding a single pump-and-dump.

How many rounds this strategy can sustain depends entirely on whether the controllers are disciplined enough and whether they will trigger sanctions from major exchanges. Once you understand this logic, you can see why some can profit steadily while others frequently get liquidated.