Topic: Check honeypot scam tokens (Read 431 times)

People who are interested in investing in altcoins should be careful because even verified tokens can scam investors. As far as altcoin investment is concerned, people who are interested in investing in altcoins should pray they don't invest in altcoins that have a bad team; if not, it will be hard for them to get their capital back when the token is listed on a centralized exchange talk more of getting a profit. Some people know how to run the altcoin scam, and they have been in the system for a long time, and they know what to do to attract people to invest in their scam project. People interested in investing in altcoins should always DYOR to get more information about the altcoin they want to invest in because some project teams can go to the extent of verifying their tokens and also auditing their tokens with Cerkit so that investors will see their project as legit, but at the end, they will scam their investors.

Block explorers display these tokens in grey color and unverified, signals of likely scam tokens for people who don't know how to read Smart Contract, but have enough carefulness with their money. Risk is there but warning is there too, people who are both careless and greed, will be victims of scammers.

Airdrop is like a hook for people to join new projects as after receiving airdrop, they will stay with these projects. They can sell airdropped tokens but later most of them will return to buy, for trading or investment and projects want these activities from their airdrop marketing programs.

Airdrop is like carrot and stick, carrot first but stick later and stick contextually means loss.

I have a very old Ethereum Address that I have not used in a LONG time.  I received a TON of 'Airdrops' and Unverified Tokens and the easiness of having your Coins stolen through signing a Smart Contract always kept me distant from Ethereum and its Tokens.  Most Smart Contracts I signed, I did so blindly because who the hell knows how to read a Smart Contract.  It is baffling and too risky for my liking.

Anyway.  One thing I can ensure you is that nobody will make you Rich for free.  All the 'Airdropped' Tokens that I own are Scams.  I would never trust 'Airdropped' Money.  Particularly if the Token I received is a no name.

Of course, the risks in everything are always great, and in the crypto market they are even higher. However, the use of centralized exchanges significantly reduces such risks for newcomers. And if we specifically talk about honeypot, which is actually what the thread is dedicated to, then such risks are completely excluded at CEX.

It is not a too bad advice but there is risk too.

Centralized exchanges mainly list cryptocurrencies with listing fees that is part of their business income. They can have easy or strict listing criteria but we can not trust them.

Don't forget what happened with Terra, UST and LUNA with massive inflationary minting from Do Kwon, then dumping it on Binance. Their audits team must do their jobs better, it's unacceptable that their audits team did not detect massive minting from Terra and their deposits to Binance. It's simple algorithm for detection when deposit amount is massively bigger than what is known as total supply of these tokens before the scam minting wave.

Other risks with centralized exchanges for trading or storing cryptocurrency.
Reminder: do not keep your money in online accounts

If you do not have enough knowledge to detect fraud, then you should trade on a centralized exchange with a good reputation. In this case, all the work on checking the token will be done by the team even before the token is listed on the exchange.

Yes most of the nfts we dont recognized as how we got is kinda suspicious. Ive seen many nfts on my wallet that even got worth or value is a scam one. People need to learn to stop being greedy and avoid such action that would let their wallet drained by these mfers. If you know that you dont do nft like that then ignore it cause some people think they got some free money out of no where thats a BS thing to happen.

To distinguish unverified tokens on exchanges, pay attention to:

Project research: Check the website and team.

Trading volumes: Low volumes may indicate fraud.

Verification: Look for tokens with verification tags.

Audit: Ensure the token has been audited.

Reviews: Read discussions on forums.   

These steps will help you avoid unverified tokens and protect your money.

Honeypot scams are not limited to altcoins, tokens but scammers can use honeypot NFTs too.

These scammers will send NFTs to your wallets and if you are greed, you will interact with their phishing sites and smart contracts. If you have such interactions, they will steal your Secret Recovery Phrase or private key, and steal your fund in these wallets.

When you receive NFTs randomly, while you did not buy them, ask yourself a vital question "Why did I receive it and did I want to receive these NFTs?"

It is like questions with red flags to prevent you from NFT airdrop scams.

NFT airdrop scams.
NFT Honeypots Exposed: How to Spot and Avoid Random Airdrop Traps.
How to tell the difference between a regular airdrop and airdrop phishing scams.

I don't understand the negative impact of accepting the token since it is labeled Fake_Phishing5505. In the past, there was a widespread phishing attack, and it drained all the tokens from my wallet after I received a phishing token. Could something similar happen again? If so, how should I handle it?

I'm not trying to scare or intimidate anyone, but if this issue does occur, what steps should I take? Perhaps experienced individuals have solutions to this problem.

#If you find my comment interesting, give me a merid . . .  Thanks

Thank you for your opinion that is in my mind when I made this thread but honestly I did not go to many details like your thought. I aimed at basic steps to detect unverified tokens are scam ones and quickly avoid interactions with them. I appreciate your opinion and will spend my time to write some extra guide for this thread.

Verified tokens have better appearances than unverified tokens but they can be scam tokens too. If their teams don't plan to make scam exit, they can simply fail to develop their projects and a failed project means many people lose money invested in that token.

In this topic, I focus on unverified tokens because they're at lowest scam level and people who are new in this market must have basic knowledge to avoid scams from these scammers who put very little resources for their scam attempts.

Even verified tokens are scamming investors this days, the same old plague affecting crypto is not decreasing at all, and I believe that the only way to clean this mess is full regulation on altcoins, especially those at the back number of coinmarketcap, like the top 500, there are too many shit tokens showing up and people who have no clue keeps buying.

Bitcoin is fully decentralised and should be left alone but not the same with altcoin, they are here to milk people and run away, I do wish that crypto has some certificate embedded to it, you can only create token if you have the pass.

Right now the only solution is in the hands of investors themselves, if shit tokens don't get the attention they will die on day one or Max of a week, but people lack the knowledge and they don't bother seeking the rightful knowledge first, this is why many fall victim over and over.

I didn't expect it, but thank you very much. Please don't get me wrong, I wasn't trying to beg for merit as I am here acknowledging the fact that I am still a newbie who don't have anything to share for now but learning.

Yes, I have returned the merit to the OP, because this topic is really helpful for me and I was just saying that to appreciate how much  I think this topic will help a newbie like me.

You have 1 now, learn to use it as appropriate.

Thanks for this thread. It's helpful. But since this section is for beginners, you might want to also specify and emphasize the distinct risks that this specific kind of scam tokens entail. If these tokens are launched, listed on exchanges, actively traded, does it not mean the scavengers can still make money from them, just like they make money from all kinds of scam meme coins, NFTs, airdrops, and whatnot?

Or are there certain hazards these scam tokens uniquely pose to owners? If there isn't much, are they not at all different from the great majority of altcoins? Is it therefore a solution to just avoid 99% of altcoins altogether?

The scam type with honeypot scam tokens started with Ethereum blockchain, then Binance Smart Chain and some other chains, not actually began with Solana blockchain. This scam wave on Solana blockchain rose last two years with the unbelievable rally of Solana that triggers a massive tide of meme tokens in this Solana ecosystem.

Even they don't do due diligent research, if they receive tokens in their wallets with not brand logo, it's big red flag. If they are careful people, they will not interact with those tokens. Being scammed with tokens already appeared on Coinmarketcap, Coingecko or DEX is another level, and at least scam project teams actually spent more efforts for their scam.

Just try to be helfpul and kindly share what I know.

Even top altcoins are not safe, it's worth to raise a red flag that honeypot scam tokens are more risky than top altcoins.

Don't buy altcoins because they are top altcoins

Honeypot tokens have spread widely in recent years, especially in the Solana market, with the rising hype around meme coins. The developers of these scam coins are rushing to deceive investors with the imaginary high profits from their investments by promoting these coins, most of which are new projects on a large scale and are listed on Dexscreener, Birdeye, etc. Suppose the investor does not conduct his research and analyze the token contract and liquidity (locked), the number of holders, and so on and use the Honeypot Checker Tools and review the project in all its aspects. In that case, he will inevitably lose his capital in tokens he cannot sell.

It is good that you have updated the topic now and added these valuable sources and some useful tools.

This is actually really helpful for newbies  a long with what OP has posted.  I might share this to my fellow friends who are also still learning like me since they are not in this forum yet.

It definitely worth to be rewarded with some merits if I have any.

Scams never stop and with time, there are more guides on how to spot Honey pot scam tokens. These guides can help with additional information for what I tried to share in OP.

Using a Honeypot Checker: Keep Your Crypto Safe Across 15+ EVM Chains
ERC-20 Honeypot Scams: A Beginner’s Guide and Advanced Detection Techniques. This scam is on all blockchains, not only on ERC20 chain.
Honeypot Crypto Scam Techniques Explained: A Comprehensive Guide
Honeyspot scam - Metamask guide
Demystifying Honeypot Crypto Scam: How to Spot It?

I am not owner of that website.

Now, you know it.

It is not a discussion about any service, Etherscan, Bscscan explorers or honeypot website so it does not belong to Service discussion.

Is that site (honeypot) made by you? Didn't hear about it before. Btw, its a great initiative. Many scammers show fake usdc screenshots (especially on bsc network) while dealing with newbies online. Ppl think they are the real whales (who got worthless usdc) and fall for it quite easily by exchanging their real btc for worthless token. One scammer even tried this trick on me before lol. 
Is it possible to warn ppl about a fake token transaction just based on tx id and without them putting in the contract address?

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I feel this should be moved to service discussion board.

Honeypot scam token airdrops
Scammers can launch their tokens, list it on exchanges and scam you. It requires a little bit efforts to scam you like this.

Scammers can scam you with very less efforts with their 'unverified' scam tokens.

Verified and unverified tokens.
Where to check token is scam or not scam.

Verified and unverified tokens
Verified tokens have their icons in color and their icons are exactly their project icons.
Unverified tokens don't have their project icons on block explorers but they have a default icon of that chain like ETH or BNB icon but the icon has a grey color.

Where to check token is scam or not scam?
You can check it on block explorers for that blockchain like etherscan.io for ERC20 tokens and bscscan.com for BSC BEP20 tokens.

You can use a website honeypot.is to check token too but I'd like to start with block explorers.

On Etherscan or Bscscan explorers, after you type the token smart contract address, you will have many tabs:
Transactions
Internal Txns
Erc20 Token Txns
Contract
Events
Analytics
Comments

Check Contract code
Click on Contract tab and see a contract overview and contract public name tag

Example with this scam token
Contract address: https://etherscan.io/address/0x875f716ae6d8cb584776718cb6c6ecc63781312c

Contract tab: https://etherscan.io/address/0x875f716ae6d8cb584776718cb6c6ecc63781312c#code

The Contract Public Name Tag is Fake_Phishing5505

Check Comment
Click on Comment tab and see comments

Comment tab: https://etherscan.io/address/0x875f716ae6d8cb584776718cb6c6ecc63781312c#comments
If you see comments that it is a scam token, it is a red flag about that token.

Check total holders and transaction history
If total holders is very little, it's scam
If transaction history has lot of failed transactions, it's scam
If transaction history has very little transactions, it's scam

Check with honeypot.is website
Copy the smart contract address of that token, paste it at https://honeypot.is/ethereum? for ERC20 token or https://honeypot.is/ for BSC BEP20 tokens

https://honeypot.is/ethereum?address=0x875f716ae6d8cb584776718cb6c6ecc63781312c


Check with famous coin market cap websites
Like Coinmarketcap: https://coinmarketcap.com/
Coingecko: https://www.coingecko.com/

Type their token name, contract address to check.

You can check at Community page of Coinmarketcap: https://coinmarketcap.com/community/search/top?q=0x875f716ae6d8cb584776718cb6c6ecc63781312c
or Gecko Terminal https://www.geckoterminal.com/?q=0x875f716ae6d8cb584776718cb6c6ecc63781312c

No result found on two big pages, that token is scam, no doubt

Check with Token blacklist from Dappradar
https://github.com/dappradar/tokens-blacklist
DappRadar built their Tokens Blacklist for scam spam/airdrop tokens



Honeypot scam NFT airdrops
Honeypot scams are not limited to altcoins, tokens but scammers can use honeypot NFTs too.

These scammers will send NFTs to your wallets and if you are greed, you will interact with their phishing sites and smart contracts. If you have such interactions, they will steal your Secret Recovery Phrase or private key, and steal your fund in these wallets.

When you receive NFTs randomly, while you did not buy them, ask yourself a vital question "Why did I receive it and did I want to receive these NFTs?"

It is like questions with red flags to prevent you from NFT airdrop scams.

NFT airdrop scams.
NFT Honeypots Exposed: How to Spot and Avoid Random Airdrop Traps.
How to tell the difference between a regular airdrop and airdrop phishing scams.

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▶️ Using a Honeypot Checker: Keep Your Crypto Safe Across 15+ EVM Chains
▶️ ERC-20 Honeypot Scams: A Beginner’s Guide and Advanced Detection Techniques. This scam is on all blockchains, not only on ERC20 chain.
▶️ Honeypot Crypto Scam Techniques Explained: A Comprehensive Guide
▶️ Honeyspot scam - Metamask guide
▶️ Demystifying Honeypot Crypto Scam: How to Spot It?