The five checks, in priority order
What ScanHood shows for each of these, automatically
| Check | Where it shows in a scan |
|---|---|
| Liquidity lock | lp.status and lp.safe |
| Sellability | sellable, verdict, and any DANGER-level flag |
| Deployer history | deployer.risk, deployer.rugged, deployer.launched |
| Price action red flags | "already pumped," "dumping," "thin liquidity" warn flags |
| Source verification | verified: true/false |
All five show up on one page at /scanner, that's the entire point of running a scanner instead of manually checking each of these yourself every time.
Softer signals worth knowing (not automated, use judgment)
- Anonymous team with an urgent, hype-heavy pitch. Not disqualifying by itself, most legitimate degen launches are also anonymous, but combined with any red flag above it should lower your trust further, not add to it.
- Liquidity added right before a big promotional push. A pattern sometimes used to set up a pump into thin liquidity, then a dump. Check the timing against the deployer's other launches if possible.
- Contract deployed minutes before you're seeing it. Not inherently bad, but means almost none of the checks above have any track record to draw on yet, treat "no red flags found" as "not enough history to know" rather than "confirmed safe."
Frequently asked
Which single check matters most?
Sellability. A locked pool doesn't help if the token itself has a hidden mechanism that blocks your sell, and a token with a working sell but a pullable pool can still be drained out from under you. If you can only do one check, run the honeypot simulation, then check the lock status.
Is a brand-new token always risky?
It's always unproven, which is a different thing from confirmed-risky. A brand-new token simply hasn't accumulated the history (deployer track record, price action, verification) that most of these checks depend on. Treat a clean scan on a fresh token as "no red flags yet found," not as a green light with the same confidence as an established token.
Can I automate this whole checklist?
Yes, that's exactly what ScanHood's /scanner does for a single token, and the /dex screener does across every trending or new token at once, showing a safety verdict inline rather than requiring you to check each one manually.
What if a token passes all five checks and still loses value?
That's normal and expected. This checklist screens for deliberate scams, not for whether a project succeeds. A completely legitimate, unrugged token can still fail because of thin demand, a bad market, or plain bad luck. Passing every check reduces one category of risk, it doesn't create a guarantee.