Risk & safety
How do I spot a crypto rug pull?
Most rug pulls are visible before you buy, and the checks take about ninety seconds: is liquidity locked or burned, does a small number of wallets hold most of the supply, is the mint authority still active, and has the deployer done this before. Any one of those failing is a reason to skip, and there is always another token.
The ninety-second check
- Liquidity. Locked or burned? If locked, when does it expire? A lock ending in two days protects nothing.
- Holder concentration. If the top few wallets hold tens of percent of supply, the token's future is one person's decision.
- Mint authority. Still active means more tokens can be created, and your share can be diluted to nothing at will.
- Freeze authority. Still active means your balance can be made untradeable while others exit.
- Deployer history. Serial launchers are a pattern, and the next one looks identical to the last.
The three common shapes
- Liquidity pull. The pool is withdrawn and the price goes to nothing instantly. Prevented by burned liquidity, not by intentions.
- Slow bleed. Insider wallets sell steadily into every bounce. Looks like ordinary weakness until it does not stop.
- Honeypot. Buys succeed, sells fail. The tell is transfer restrictions in the token itself, which is why testing a small sell early is cheap insurance.
Behavioural tells
- Urgency. 'Last chance', a countdown, a deadline. Manufactured scarcity is the point.
- Engagement that does not match holders. Thousands of replies, forty wallets.
- A team that is anonymous and also making specific promises about the future.
- Locked liquidity presented as though it settled the question.
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