A rug pull is any exit where the people behind a coin take the money and leave holders with a chart that only goes one way. On Solana the usual version is quiet: a dev and a few friends buy early, spread the supply across fresh wallets, and sell into everyone who arrives after the first pump.
You can't rule a rug out. What you can do is spot the setups that make one easy, and skip them. The whole check takes about five minutes, every tool below is free, and none of them ever needs your wallet.
The three kinds of rug you'll meet
- Hard rug. The team pulls the liquidity out of the pool, so there's nothing left to sell into. Rarer now, because most launchpads lock or burn liquidity when a coin graduates.
- Soft rug. The team, or a cabal of insiders, holds a big share of supply and sells it into buyers over minutes or days. This is the one you'll see most.
- Honeypot. You can buy but you can't sell, because the contract lets the creator freeze accounts or take tokens back. Mostly a risk with tokens launched outside the big launchpads.
Step 1: scan the contract
Paste the contract address into RugCheck. It lists the technical risks in plain words: whether the creator can still mint new tokens or freeze yours, whether the liquidity is locked or burned, how concentrated the top holders are, and whether the token's metadata can still change.
Run the same address through SolSniffer as a second opinion. The two weigh risks differently, so when both flag the same thing, take it seriously. If mint or freeze authority is still live on a memecoin, that's usually where the check ends.
Step 2: map the holders
Open the token on Bubblemaps. Every top holder is a bubble, and wallets that sent tokens or SOL to each other are linked. Forty small holders in a list can turn out to be one big cluster on the map, and one cluster selling at once is how charts go vertical in the wrong direction.
For the trend, HolderScan shows whether the holder count is growing and the top-holder share is falling, which is healthier than a pump driven by a few wallets.
Step 3: check for bundled supply
On pump.fun launches, the most common trick is a bundle: the dev buys a big slice of supply from many wallets in the same block as the launch. Trench Radar's bundle scanner shows how much was bundled, by how many wallets, and how much they still hold. We cover this one in detail in how to check if a memecoin is bundled.
Step 4: look at the dev wallet
Find the dev wallet (most trading terminals show it on the token card) and check its history. A wallet that has launched twenty coins in a month and sold every one of them early is telling you what it's about to do. Solana Tracker also gives every token a 0 to 10 risk score next to the chart, which is a handy first filter.
Step 5: check the X account and who's shilling it
Paste the coin's X handle into Sorsa. It scores the account by which real crypto accounts follow it and flags bot followers, so a big follower count with a low score is a warning. Then look up the KOLs posting about it on Kolscan: if they're selling while they post, you're the exit.
Red flags that end the check
- Mint or freeze authority still enabled on a memecoin
- One cluster holding 20% or more of supply on the bubble map
- Bundled wallets that still hold most of what they bought
- A dev wallet that sold its last coins within hours of launch
- Liquidity that isn't locked or burned on a token outside the big launchpads
- An X account with lots of followers and no real accounts among them
None of these is proof on its own, and a coin with zero red flags can still go to zero. The point is to stop buying the setups where a rug costs the team nothing. Size every buy for the case where you're wrong, and if you want to practice reading these signals first, try paper trading.
Free tools for this check
RugCheck
Rug checkersFree Solana token risk scanner: mint authority, liquidity and top holders
Bubblemaps
Holder analysisHolder bubble maps that expose insider clusters hiding across many wallets
Trench Radar
Holder analysisPump.fun bundle scanner, plus filters, backtests and curated calls
SolSniffer
Rug checkersSolana token audit score: a solid second opinion next to RugCheck
FAQ
How do I check if a memecoin is a rug pull?
Scan the contract on RugCheck for mint and freeze authority and locked liquidity, map the holders on Bubblemaps, check for bundled supply with Trench Radar, look at the dev wallet's history, and check the X account on Sorsa. It takes about five minutes.
Is RugCheck enough to avoid rugs?
No. RugCheck catches technical traps in the contract, but it can't stop insiders from selling supply they already hold. Pair it with a holder map like Bubblemaps.
What is a soft rug?
A soft rug is when the team or insiders hold a large share of supply and sell it into buyers over time, instead of pulling liquidity in one go. It's the most common kind of rug on Solana.
Nothing here is financial advice, and we never call a coin or tool safe. We say what we checked and when.