Three ways a Solana token rugs
"Rug pull" covers several different tricks, and each one leaves a different trace. It helps to know which one a check is looking for.
- The pool pull. Whoever controls the liquidity withdraws it. The token still exists, but there is nothing left to sell it into.
- The control trick. The creator kept a power over the token — printing new supply, freezing holders' accounts, moving tokens out of wallets, or charging a huge fee on every transfer — and uses it once enough people have bought.
- The slow dump. No code tricks at all. A creator, or a group of wallets that bought at launch, simply sells a large share of the supply into everyone who came later. This is the most common pattern on launchpad coins, and the hardest to see on a contract page.
The twelve checks below are grouped by where they look: the token, the pool, the holders and the market.
Step zero: make sure it's the right token
Tickers are not unique. Within minutes of a coin getting attention, copies with the same name, symbol and image appear. Always work from the contract address (the mint address), copied from the place you first saw the coin — never typed, never taken from a reply or a DM. If two tokens share a ticker, compare their addresses, creation times and liquidity before anything else.
Checks 1–4: the token itself
01Mint authority revoked
The mint authority is the account allowed to create new tokens. If it still exists, the supply you see today is not final: the holder can print more and sell it into the pool. On any Solana block explorer the token page lists the mint authority; you want it empty.
Red flag: a mint authority that is still set on a memecoin. There is rarely a good reason for one.
02Freeze authority revoked
The freeze authority can freeze individual token accounts, so the tokens in them can't move. For a memecoin that means a holder can be stopped from selling while others still can. Regulated stablecoins keep this power for compliance reasons; a memecoin has no such excuse.
Red flag: a freeze authority that is still set.
03No dangerous Token-2022 extensions
Solana has two token programs. The classic one has no custom logic. The newer Token-2022 program supports extensions, and a few of them hand the creator powers that look a lot like a rug:
- Permanent delegate — an address that can move or burn tokens from any holder's account, without asking.
- Transfer hook — a program that runs on every transfer and can make transfers fail, which can block sells.
- Transfer fee — a cut taken on every transfer. Small fees exist on legitimate tokens; a high or changeable fee eats your exit.
- Default frozen accounts — new holders start frozen until someone unfreezes them.
Red flag: a permanent delegate or a transfer hook on a fresh memecoin. Most launchpad coins use the classic program and have none of these.
04Metadata that can't be swapped
If the metadata update authority is still active, the name, symbol and image can be changed later. On its own this is a mild signal — but combined with other flags it can be used to impersonate a more popular coin after the fact.
Checks 5–7: the pool
05Enough liquidity for your trade
Liquidity is not just a safety number, it is your exit. Ask a concrete question: if I buy for my normal amount, how far does that move the price, and how far would selling it back move it? On a very thin pool, a small trade can move the price several percent each way, so you start every position in a hole.
Red flag: a pool so small that your own buy is a large share of it.
06LP burned or locked
When liquidity is added to a pool, the provider receives LP tokens that can later be redeemed for the liquidity. If those LP tokens are burned, nobody can withdraw that liquidity ever again. If they are locked, they are held in a time-lock until a date — check the date, because a lock that expires tomorrow protects you until tomorrow. Coins that graduate from launchpads such as pump.fun normally have their LP burned automatically.
Red flag: LP tokens sitting in a normal wallet, or only a small share burned.
07One real pool, not decoys
Some launches create extra pools for the same token — sometimes seconds before the real one — with little liquidity. A decoy pool can show a misleading price, catch buyers who are routed into it, or make a chart look healthier than it is. Look at how many pools the token has and where the liquidity actually sits.
Red flag: several young pools for one token with very different prices or depths.
Checks 8–11: who holds it
08Top-holder concentration
Open the holder list and leave out the addresses that aren't people: the liquidity pool itself, the burn address and launchpad contracts. Then look at what the largest remaining wallets own together. When a handful of wallets hold a large share, they decide the price.
Red flag: the top ten (excluding pool and burn) holding a large share, or one wallet holding several percent.
09Creator share
How much does the wallet that created the token still hold — and has it been moving tokens to fresh wallets? A creator holding a few percent is common. A creator holding a large block, or quietly splitting it across new addresses, is a seller in waiting.
10Linked wallets: bundles, snipers and clusters
Ten wallets that each hold 2% look harmless — unless they were all funded from the same source and bought in the same block. That is a bundled launch: one party buying a large share at launch through many wallets, so the holder list looks spread out. Check whether the earliest buyers share a funding wallet, bought within the same second, and still hold.
Red flag: a large share of supply in early wallets that trace back to one funder.
11The deployer's history
Creators repeat themselves. Look up what else the creating wallet launched in the past weeks. If its earlier tokens died within hours, the new one is unlikely to be the exception. Serial launchers often use fresh wallets, so a brand-new deployer with no history is neutral, not good.
Check 12: what the chart is doing
12The last 30 minutes
The chart won't tell you whether a token is a scam, but it tells you what you are walking into. Has it already dumped hard once? Is it up several hundred percent in five minutes, so you would be buying from the people who got in first? Are there real sells from many different wallets, or only buys?
Red flag: a chart with buys and no successful sells — that is a honeypot pattern, covered in our honeypot guide.
The checklist on one screen
| # | Check | What you want to see |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mint authority | Revoked |
| 2 | Freeze authority | Revoked |
| 3 | Token-2022 extensions | None, or harmless ones only |
| 4 | Metadata authority | Immutable (nice to have) |
| 5 | Liquidity | Deep enough that your trade barely moves the price |
| 6 | LP tokens | Burned, or locked well past your holding time |
| 7 | Pools | One real pool |
| 8 | Top holders | No small group owning most of the supply |
| 9 | Creator share | Small, and not being split up |
| 10 | Linked wallets | No large bundled or clustered share |
| 11 | Deployer history | No trail of dead launches |
| 12 | Chart | Real two-way trading, no dump just behind it, not already up too much |
What a clean result does not mean
Every one of these checks describes the token at the moment you looked. A token can pass all twelve and still go to zero, because the people holding it decide to sell. What the checks do well is filter out the traps that are visible in advance — and that is a large share of them.
Two habits matter as much as the checks themselves: decide your exit before you buy (a stop-loss and where you take profit), and trade from a separate wallet holding only what you are prepared to lose.
How Uurly runs this list. Uurly's server picks up new Solana coins as their pools open and measures each one; your app judges those measurements against your own thresholds. With the default settings that is 13 checks on Solana — authorities, Token-2022 extensions, liquidity and lock, creator share, deployer history, decoy pools and the recent chart — and holder clustering can be switched on. One failed check is enough to turn a coin down, and the coin stays in your list with the exact reason, so you can see what your rules kept you out of.
Let the 12 checks run themselves
Uurly checks every new Solana coin the moment its pool opens — authorities, Token-2022 extensions, liquidity and lock, creator share, deployer history, decoy pools and the chart — and turns a coin down with the reason when one check fails. Try the whole flow on demo coins first.
Trial: demo coins with real checks and real price paths, every trade simulated — no wallet, no funds. Live trading needs a Pro subscription.
FAQ
Is a token safe if mint and freeze authority are revoked?
No. Revoked authorities remove two specific threats: new tokens being printed and your tokens being frozen. The supply can still be concentrated in a few wallets, the creator can still sell a large share, and the price can still go to zero. Treat revoked authorities as the minimum, not a verdict.
What is the difference between a hard rug and a soft rug?
A hard rug is one sudden move: liquidity pulled, supply minted and dumped, or sells blocked. A soft rug is slower: the team or a group of linked wallets sells into buyers over hours or days until the price has collapsed. Burned liquidity prevents the first kind of pool pull, but not the second.
Does burned liquidity mean the developer cannot rug?
It means nobody can withdraw that pool's liquidity, so the classic pull-the-pool rug is off the table for that pool. The developer and early wallets can still sell their tokens into the pool, which drains its SOL side just as effectively if they hold enough supply. That is why holder and creator share checks matter as much as the lock.
How much of the supply should the top holders own?
There is no universal number, and it depends on how early the token is. As a rough guide, many traders get wary once the ten largest holders — not counting the liquidity pool and burn addresses — own more than a quarter to a third of the supply, or when a single wallet owns more than a few percent. Linked wallets should be counted together.
Can a rug check guarantee a token won't crash?
No tool can. A check describes a token at the moment it was measured. Authorities can be misread, wallets can be linked in ways no heuristic sees, and a token with every check green can still be sold off by its holders. Use checks to skip the obvious traps, and size every trade as if it could go to zero.
Keep reading
Not financial advice. Memecoins are extremely risky and most go to zero; only trade money you can afford to lose. Checks lower the odds of a bad coin — they don't remove them. Read the Risk Disclaimer.
