How do you check if a token is a honeypot?

A honeypot is a token you can buy but cannot sell, or can sell only at a tax that takes almost everything. To check, simulate a buy and a sell against the live pool, read the buy and sell taxes, and look for blacklist, pause and transaction-limit functions. Then test with a small real sell before buying more.

Last reviewed: 6 November 2026

These guides and the DegenPass trust score are measurements, not investment advice: no check can prove a token is honest, and none can predict its price.

What is a honeypot token?

A honeypot looks like any other token on a chart: the price goes up, people buy, and the buys go through. The trap is on the sell side. The contract either refuses sells from ordinary wallets, or charges a sell tax so high that almost nothing comes back. Only the creator, or wallets the creator has exempted, can sell into the pool.

Because buys keep working, the chart often looks healthy — which is exactly what draws more buyers in.

How a honeypot blocks the sell

• Blacklist: the owner adds buyers’ addresses to a list that is not allowed to transfer or sell.
• Pause or trading switch: transfers can be stopped for everyone except exempt wallets.
• Sell tax: a fee on sells that the owner can raise at any time, up to the whole amount.
• Max-transaction and max-wallet limits: a sell above a tiny limit fails, so you can only sell crumbs.
• On Solana: an active freeze authority can freeze your token account so it cannot send, and some Token-2022 extensions — a transfer hook, a transfer fee or a default frozen state — can block or tax transfers.

How to check if a token is a honeypot, step by step

1. Make sure you have the right contract address

   Check the token you actually mean to buy. Copy the address from the project’s official site and paste it into the tools below instead of searching by name.

2. Run a buy-and-sell simulation

   A simulation sends a test buy and then a test sell against the live pool without spending real money, and reports whether the sell went through and what tax it paid. GoPlus data covers this for EVM networks. A sell that fails, or a sell tax far above the buy tax, is the classic honeypot signature.

3. Read the contract’s controls

   On Etherscan, BscScan or Basescan, open the Contract tab. If the source is verified, look under Write Contract for functions such as blacklist, setBot, pause, setTradingEnabled, setMaxTx or setFee. If ownership is not renounced, those switches can be flipped at any moment. On Solana, check on Solscan that the freeze authority is revoked and look at which token program and extensions the mint uses.

4. Look at who has managed to sell

   On the explorer or DexScreener, look at recent trades. Many buys and almost no sells from ordinary wallets, or sells that only ever come from one or two addresses, are a warning sign.

5. Test with a small amount, then at your real size

   If everything above looks normal, buy a small amount and sell part of it straight away. Compare what you received with what the quote showed. Then consider the size you actually plan to trade: limits and taxes can be set to let small sells through and stop larger ones.

6. Check again before you add more

   An owner who can change the tax or the blacklist can do it after you buy. Re-check before you add to a position, and again before you plan to sell.

Why brand-new tokens are harder to check

Scanners need data to work with. In the first minutes or hours after a launch, a token may not be indexed yet, the pool may have too few trades to simulate against, and holder lists may be incomplete. A blank or partial result in that window means “not checked yet”, not “clear”.

Some contracts also change behaviour over time: trading is normal for a while, then a switch turns on a sell block or a higher tax. That is why a single scan at launch is not enough.

How DegenPass checks this

On EVM networks DegenPass runs its own read-only sell simulation — a buy followed by a sell in a simulated block — alongside GoPlus data, and on Solana it reads RugCheck and Jupiter data. If the exit is found closed the trust score drops to 0, and a buy through DegenPass is refused when a honeypot or a blacklist is found, while selling is never blocked.

Read the trust score methodology

Frequently asked questions

Can a honeypot check be wrong?

Yes, in both directions. A simulation reads the contract as it is at that moment, so an owner can switch a block on after it ran, and some contracts only block certain wallets or certain sizes. A failed simulation can also come from a pool with too little money in it. Treat the result as one signal among several.

How high a sell tax is too high?

There is no single line, but a sell tax far above the buy tax, or one the owner can still change, is the signal to watch. Compare the tax with what you are willing to lose on every exit, and check whether the owner can raise it later.

If I already bought a honeypot, can I get my money back?

Usually not. Blockchain transactions cannot be reversed, and the contract decides who may sell. Do not pay anyone who offers to “unlock” a token for a fee: those offers are a common second trap.

Does renounced ownership mean a token is not a honeypot?

Not on its own. A sell block or a high tax written into the code keeps working after ownership is renounced, and a contract behind an upgradeable proxy can still be changed by whoever controls the proxy.

Related pages

• All token-check guides
• How do you check if a token is a rug pull before you buy?
• What are mint authority, freeze authority and owner powers, and how do you check them?
• How do you check if a token’s liquidity is locked?
• How do you verify a token’s real contract address and spot fake copies?
• All DegenPass tokens and their checks
• DegenPass trust scores
• How the trust score is calculated
• DegenPass help: buying tokens with USDT

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