Rug Pull
A scam where a project's creators drain its funds or dump their tokens, leaving investors with worthless holdings.
A team launches a token, hypes it, and attracts buyers into a liquidity pool. Then the founders pull the pooled money or sell their giant stash all at once. Price collapses to near zero, and they vanish — often with the project's social accounts deleted.
Some are coded in from the start: hidden functions that let the deployer mint unlimited tokens or block everyone else from selling. The warning signs are an anonymous team and a token supply concentrated in a handful of wallets. DeFi's openness makes these easy to launch and hard to undo.
Related terms
A scheme that inflates a coin's price with coordinated hype, then sells into the buying for profit.
Liquidity PoolA pot of tokens locked in a smart contract that traders swap against, with prices set by a formula.
Meme CoinA token built on a joke, trend, or mascot, with value driven almost entirely by hype rather than utility.
DYOR (Do Your Own Research)A standard disclaimer urging you to investigate a project yourself before risking any money on it.