Tokens you can buy but cannot sell
A honeypot token is a token designed so that buyers can get in but cannot get out. The chart looks healthy, the price climbs, and every buy goes through normally — but when an ordinary holder tries to sell, the transaction fails. Only the creator and wallets they control are able to sell, and they do so into the liquidity that trapped buyers have provided.
The name comes from the idea of bait: the rising price and apparent demand are the honey, and buyers are the ones who get stuck. Honeypots are particularly dangerous because they look better than most tokens on the surface. A chart with only green candles and no meaningful sell pressure can be a sign that nobody is allowed to sell.
On EVM chains like Ethereum and BNB Chain, honeypots usually rely on custom contract code that blocks transfers or charges a 100% sell tax. Standard Solana SPL tokens do not run custom code on transfer, so the mechanism is different. On Solana, the main honeypot tool is freeze authority.
If a token retains freeze authority, the authority holder can freeze any token account. A frozen account cannot send tokens, which means it cannot sell on a DEX. A honeypot operator can monitor new buyers and freeze each account shortly after it purchases, or freeze accounts in bulk once enough SOL has entered the pool. Buyers see their tokens in their wallet, but every attempt to swap them fails.
Token-2022, the newer Solana token program, adds extensions such as transfer hooks, transfer fees, and default-frozen account state. These can be used legitimately, but they can also be configured to block or heavily tax sells. Any token using unusual Token-2022 extensions deserves extra scrutiny.
In practice the two often combine: a creator freezes the largest holders so they cannot exit, then pulls liquidity. For a broader view of rug mechanics, see how to spot a rug pull on Solana.
Some traders try a tiny buy and sell to test a token. On Solana this is unreliable: a freeze can be applied at any time after your test, and operators can whitelist small trades or delay freezing until a wallet holds a meaningful position. Checking permissions is more reliable than testing behavior, because permissions tell you what the creator can do, not just what they have done so far.
Every token in the token scanner is checked for freeze authority status at scan time. If it is enabled, the token carries a freeze authority risk flag and its Trust Score is reduced. Buy/sell activity is also shown so you can see whether sells are actually happening. The Contract Analyzer can fetch fresh authority data for any address on demand.
Enabled freeze authority does not prove a token is a honeypot — many tokens simply leave the default setting in place. But it means the creator retains the ability to trap you, and for an anonymous new token there is rarely a good reason for that.
Standard freezing becomes impossible, but Token-2022 extensions or extreme transfer fees could still restrict selling. Check the token program and extensions as well.
Only the freeze authority can unfreeze it. There is no on-chain way for a holder to reverse a freeze, which is why checking before buying matters.
They are less common than liquidity rug pulls, but they appear regularly among newly launched tokens that retain freeze authority.