What a honeypot is
A honeypot in crypto is a token or contract that looks like a normal investment from the outside but contains hidden code that prevents most holders from selling. You can buy. You can see your balance go up on the chart. But when you try to sell, the transaction reverts, or it goes through with a 99% 'fee' that drains your position.
Honeypots are popular with low-effort scammers because they don't require ongoing engagement. Set the trap, market it briefly, harvest the buys, walk away.
The technical tells
- Selectively executable sell function. The contract only lets specific whitelisted wallets sell. Everyone else gets a revert.
- Variable transfer tax. Buy tax is 5%, sell tax is 99%. The 99% goes to the team wallet. Your sell technically 'works' but you receive almost nothing.
- Pause function. The contract owner can pause all transfers, freezing the market while they offload.
- Blocklist function. The contract owner can blacklist any wallet from transferring. Often used after a buyer realises the trap and tries to warn others.
The behavioural tells
- Lots of buys on the chart, very few sells. Real tokens have both.
- Telegram/Discord 'community' has the same handful of accounts posting moonboy memes.
- Every actual question gets the same canned answer or gets the asker banned.
- Token launched in the last 7 days with no roadmap, no team identity, and a website that's a single landing page.
Where AVA fits
For any token contract you can paste in, AVA scores the entity from 0 to 100 with explainable reasoning. See the public how-it-works summary for our methodology overview.
What to do
Before buying any low-cap token: paste the contract address into AVA. If it's flagged as high-risk, walk away regardless of how good the marketing looks.
If you've already bought and can't sell: you're stuck. Report the contract to AVA so others are warned, and treat the loss as a tuition fee for crypto due diligence.