The block a coin is created in is when the coin is cheapest and when the fewest people know it exists.
Whoever is already waiting there buys first: the creator, a bundle sent with the creation, a bot that watches for new coins. By the time anyone else sees the coin, those wallets hold it.
the ordering game
This is where the ordering game is most visible. Paradigm's Dark Forest showed that anything profitable and visible on chain is taken by whoever is already watching, and that hiding a transaction doesn't save it.
Flash Boys 2.0 showed bots bidding fees against each other for a place in front of ordinary traders.
It is also how a promoter gets ahead of their own audience. ZachXBT described a trader who bought a large share of new coins' supply from private wallets, then promoted the coins to followers.
Mert, in 2025: the sniping of coins launched on Solana has to end.
the rule
When a coin is created, the program writes down the slot. Every buy checks it, and a buy fails unless it lands in a strictly later slot.
It fails inside the creation transaction, in a bundle sent with it, and anywhere else in that block. It fails for the creator the same way it fails for everyone.
The slot is written once and never changes, so there is no switch that opens the block early for anyone.
The rule holds because every buy goes through the same program from the first one. The whole supply sits in the coin's own market, so there is no outside pool where the coin could be bought before its curve opens.
Trading opens from the next block. By then the coin is on chain, and anyone watching the chain can see it.
The first buyer pays the curve's opening price, and every buyer after pays the curve's price at their turn. The curve doesn't know who anyone is.
A creator who wants their own coin buys it in a later block, at the curve's price, with the same fee as everyone.
This is a protocol rule, the same for every coin. Nobody holds a coin before the market can see that it exists.