Honeypot

Glossary · Whales & On-Chain

A honeypot is a token whose contract lets you buy but not sell — a hidden transfer restriction, a sell tax of 100%, or a blacklist that triggers on any wallet that is not the deployer's. The chart shows only buys, so it looks like relentless demand. Simulating a sell before buying is the only defence.

"The chart goes up and up because nobody can sell. It is not a pump, it is a trap with a door that only opens inward."

Contract-level honeypots come in flavours: a transfer function that reverts unless the sender is whitelisted, a tax variable the owner can set to 100% after launch, a maximum-transaction limit set to zero for everyone but the deployer, or a hidden mint that lets the deployer dilute at will. Scanners simulate a buy and a sell against the contract to catch most of these; a token that fails the simulated sell is not a token. On Solana the equivalents are freeze and mint authorities left in the deployer's hands.

In the data, honeypots show as a buy/sell ratio near infinity with a suspiciously smooth chart and no sells on the tape. Our meme tape's buys-versus-sells column is the first place to look: forty buys and zero sells in an hour on a token with real volume is not strength.

Meme tape: buyers against sellers on every launch (free sign-in)

Related jargon

Questions

What is Honeypot in crypto trading?

A honeypot is a token whose contract lets you buy but not sell — a hidden transfer restriction, a sell tax of 100%, or a blacklist that triggers on any wallet that is not the deployer's. The chart shows only buys, so it looks like relentless demand. Simulating a sell before buying is the only defence.

How would a trader say it?

The chart goes up and up because nobody can sell. It is not a pump, it is a trap with a door that only opens inward.

Part of the Crypto Jargon glossary — every term, decoded the way a trader would say it.

Crypto Jargon

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