How I Learned to Avoid Honeypot Tokens and Rug Pulls on DEX
Decentralized exchanges are one of the best and worst things that happened to crypto at the same time.
On one hand, DEX platforms give you full control over your funds. No KYC, no middlemen, no permission needed. On the other hand, anyone can deploy a smart contract in minutes — including scammers. And they do it every single day.
If you have spent enough time trading on DEX, you have probably seen it yourself:a new token appears, liquidity looks decent, the chart goes up fast, people in Telegram say “early”, and everything seems fine — until you try to sell.
And you can’t.
This is how many people first meet honeypot tokens and rug pulls.
What a Honeypot Token Really Is
A honeypot token is simple in concept and brutal in execution. You are allowed to buy it, but selling is either fully blocked or made impossible through hidden mechanics.
Sometimes the contract blacklists sellers. Sometimes the sell tax is set to 99%. Sometimes only the owner wallet is allowed to sell.
From the outside, everything looks normal. The chart moves, buys go through, the price increases. But once you try to exit, you realize you are stuck.
This is not a bug. It is the whole point.
Rug Pulls Are Different, But Just as Dangerous
With rug pulls, selling is usually possible — until it suddenly isn’t worth anything.
Developers remove liquidity from the pool or dump their tokens, and the price collapses in seconds. If you are not fast enough, you are left holding tokens that no one wants to buy.
Rug pulls often happen after some hype. The project may look active for days or even weeks before everything disappears.
Things I Always Check Before Buying a Token
Over time, I stopped trusting charts and hype. Now I look at boring things first.
The smart contract matters more than the price.
If the contract is not verified on the block explorer, that alone is a strong reason to stay away. If it is verified, I scan it for basic red flags: functions that allow changing taxes, blacklisting wallets, or limiting selling.
I also check liquidity. If liquidity is not locked, or locked for a very short time, the risk increases a lot. It doesn’t mean a rug pull will happen, but it means it can happen at any moment.
Another thing many people ignore is token distribution. If one or two wallets hold most of the supply, that is not a healthy situation. It only takes one transaction to crash the price.
Why Fast Profits Usually End Badly
Most honeypot stories start the same way: “I just wanted a quick trade.”
Scammers know this. They design tokens specifically for people chasing fast gains. Low liquidity, fast pumps, aggressive marketing — all of it is meant to push you into buying without checking.
The truth is simple: if something looks too easy in crypto, it usually isn’t real.
Final Thoughts
DEX trading is not bad. It is just unforgiving.
There is no customer support, no refunds, no one to blame but yourself. Every mistake is final, and every transaction teaches a lesson — sometimes an expensive one.
If this post helps even one person avoid buying a token they can’t sell, then it has done its job.