How to check a Solana token for a rug pull

Most Solana losses are not bad luck. They are tokens that were never safe to begin with, and the warning signs were sitting on-chain the whole time. Checking a token before you trade it takes about thirty seconds. Here is exactly what to look at.

What a rug pull actually is

A rug pull is when the people behind a token take the money and leave you holding something you cannot sell. It usually happens one of three ways: they pull the liquidity so there is nothing to sell into, they freeze your token account so you physically cannot move your tokens, or they mint a flood of new supply that craters the price. All three are either visible on-chain or foreshadowed by on-chain facts before you ever buy.

Check a token in five steps

Paste the mint address into the rug checker. Open the SolKnife token safety scan and paste a raw mint address or a Solscan link. It needs no wallet and carries no SolKnife fee.
Read the freeze authority. If it is active, the issuer can freeze your token account at will, which means you may buy and then be unable to sell. See what a freeze authority is for why this is the cleanest honeypot a creator has.
Read the mint authority. If it is active, the supply can still be inflated. New tokens can be minted at any time, diluting every holder, including you.
Check sellability. SolKnife probes for a real sell route. No route, or a route only at an extreme price impact, is the honeypot signal: you can buy but you cannot sell.
Check liquidity and holder concentration. Thin liquidity means you cannot exit at size. A handful of wallets holding most of the supply means a few people can dump on everyone else.

What a clean check does and does not mean

A token that passes every check is not guaranteed safe. A check is a snapshot. Authorities can be revoked after you look, liquidity can be pulled minutes later, and a large wallet can be a market maker rather than an insider. Treat a clean result as "no obvious traps right now". Re-scan immediately before you trade.

Frequently asked questions

Is a token with both authorities revoked safe?

Revoking the freeze and mint authorities removes two of the most common traps, but not all of them. Liquidity can still be pulled, and a Token-2022 transfer hook can still block sells. Revoked authorities are necessary, not sufficient.

Can a token become a rug after I check it?

Yes. That is the whole reason to re-scan immediately before trading. A report from an hour ago describes an hour ago.

Does checking a token cost anything?

SolKnife does not charge for the rug checker, and it does not need a wallet connection. You only connect a wallet when you choose to swap.

What is a freeze authority on a Solana token? — the biggest red flag this checker watches for
How to revoke mint authority on a Solana token — the fix, if you're the creator of a flagged token
SolKnife methodology— every signal the rug-checker measures and what it doesn't claim