📖 Plain-English definitions

Scam pattern glossary

The terms you'll see across trust scores, Rug Autopsy reports, and the Wall of Shame -- explained plainly, with links to where we detect each one automatically.

Rug pull

The creator (or early insiders) dumps their holdings or drains liquidity, crashing the price after other buyers are in. The most common failure mode for meme coins.

Real example: CINO ($CINO) →
Honeypot

A token that can be bought but not sold -- either by design (malicious contract logic) or because liquidity/trading is blocked. On pump.fun-standard tokens this is rare since the bonding curve program is fixed, but custom/forked programs can still do it.

Any live token page has a pre-trade simulator that checks this directly →
Wash trading

The same wallet (or coordinated wallets) repeatedly buying and selling to inflate apparent volume/interest, making a token look more active or popular than it really is.

Flagged automatically as "wallet(s) both bought & sold" in the trade sample signals card on token pages.

Sniper bundle

Multiple wallets buying in the exact same Solana slot (~400ms) right at launch -- a strong sign one actor controls several wallets to grab a large share before anyone else can react.

Flagged automatically as "Bundled buy detected" in the launch pattern section when it happens.

Mint authority (not renounced)

If the creator keeps the ability to mint new tokens, they can print unlimited supply and dilute everyone else's holdings at will. Renouncing it permanently removes that power.

Freeze authority (not renounced)

If the creator keeps this power, they can freeze any holder's tokens, making them untradeable -- effectively locking buyers out of selling.

LP burn

Liquidity pool tokens being permanently destroyed (sent to a burn address) so the liquidity backing a trading pair can never be withdrawn. Pump.fun's own migration process does this automatically for every graduation.

Holder concentration

How much of the total supply sits in a small number of wallets. High concentration (especially one wallet alone) means a single sell can crash the price for everyone else.

Impersonator token

A new token using the same or a near-identical name/symbol as a famous, established token to trick buyers into thinking they're buying the real thing.

Try searching a famous name (e.g. "pepe") to see the warning in action →
Non-standard bonding curve program

A token whose bonding curve is owned by a program other than pump.fun's official one. That custom code has never been audited by anyone here -- it could be completely harmless, or it could contain a rug mechanism a stock pump.fun token simply can't have.

None of these terms mean a token IS a scam on their own -- they're patterns worth knowing so you can judge the full picture (see any token's Trust Score breakdown) rather than a single red flag in isolation.