Field guide to Grub
Notes on one pixel caterpillar and the chart it lives on. Everything below comes from one config file, so the site and this page always agree.
Specimens
Specimen No. 0: Egg
Habitat: Before launch
Sits on the leaf and rocks. Now and then a crack runs across the shell.
Specimen No. 1: Hatchling
Habitat: Under $10K
Four segments and a head too big for them.
Specimen No. 2: Grub
Habitat: $10K-$50K
Eight segments. Crawls the full width of the leaf.
Specimen No. 3: Fat Grub
Habitat: $50K-$250K
Fourteen chunky segments, the last fourteen hours of the chart.
Specimen No. 4: Cocoon
Habitat: $250K-$1M
Striped in the latest candles. It pulses with volume and its eyes peek through a slit.
Specimen No. 5: Moon Moth
Habitat: $1M and up
Wings patterned with candles. It flies toward the moon in the sky.
Body length by stage: Hatchling 4, Grub 8, Fat Grub 14 hourly candles. Stage lines: $10.0K, $50.0K, $250.0K, $1.00M.
What the chart does, what Grub does
Read top to bottom. The first row that matches is the mood. A mood lasts at least 60 seconds and ends only after the number moves 2% past the line.
| Mood | On the chart | In the scene |
|---|---|---|
| Dead | 24h volume under $100, or no trades in 24h | On its back with X eyes. A tiny ghost floats above. |
| Asleep | Fewer than 3 trades this hour | Curled in a ring under a night sky. |
| Panic | Down 20% or more this hour | Runs back and forth through a red storm. |
| Euphoric | Up 25% or more this hour | Bounces in waves under a gold sky. |
| Starving | Hourly volume under 0.5% of market cap | Thin and pale. Asks to be fed. |
| Nervous | Down 5% to 20% this hour | Darting eyes and sweat drops. |
| Happy | Up 5% to 25% this hour | Smiles and crawls fast. |
| Chill | Anything else | Munches the leaf, slowly. |
Live events
- A new hour opens
- Grub grows a segment at the neck. The oldest segment falls off the tail.
- New buys since the last poll
- Green candles fall from the sky, one per buy, ten at most. Grub runs over and eats them.
- New sells since the last poll
- Red candles fall. Grub dodges. When many fall at once, a few hit and it winces.
- Market cap crosses the next stage
- Grub grows: hatches, pupates, or splits its cocoon and flies.
- Market cap falls under its stage
- Reverse metamorphosis. The moth squeezes back into the cocoon, the cocoon cracks, a caterpillar climbs out.
- Trades return after DEAD
- "It lives!" Grub flips back over and the fog clears.
- The chart APIs stop answering
- Grub keeps its last known state and a question mark appears over its head.
- You tap Grub
- It curls up happy and hearts float off. Your pets are counted.
Where the numbers come from
DexScreener gives price, volume, trades and market cap for the coin's deepest pool. GeckoTerminal gives the last 24 hourly candles for that pool. GrubPet fetches both through its own server and caches them (60 s and 300 s), so the free API limits hold however many people watch. Your browser asks every 15 seconds and stops while the tab is hidden.
A fresh pump.fun coin often has no hourly candles yet. Until it does, Grub builds its body from the prices it sees while your page is open, and the missing segments stay grey.