Methodology

How we judge a token.

Every finding in a report comes from one of the checks below. Each one says what it reads, where the data comes from, why it matters, and how severity is decided. The same fact means different things at different ages, so most rules are gated by whether a token is young or small (under 30 days, or under $10M valuation) or established.

Independence

Pewcake does not accept payment from token teams, does not offer promotions or listings, and has no way to change a verdict by hand. Every token gets the same checks against the same data, including any token associated with Pewcake itself. Our only income is the platform fee shown before you sign.

What we cannot know

Pewcake identifies observable risk signals. It does not predict the future. It cannot guarantee:

that a token will not rug — only that the observable signals for it are absent right now
that a deployer will not sell, or that a wallet with a clean history stays clean
that a program will not be exploited, or that a pool will not be drained by a bug
what happens to liquidity after the moment of the check; a report is a snapshot
the intent behind any on-chain fact; a live freeze authority is a risk, not proof of a scam
anything about a token we could not read; when a source fails, the report says 'not checked' rather than 'safe'

A clear result means we found nothing, not that there is nothing. The Caught wall keeps the public record of how often that holds.

The checks

Mint authority

Reads: Whether the mint still has an authority that can create new supply.
Source: The mint account, read directly from the chain.
Why it matters: Live mint authority means the deployer can dilute every holder at will. Finished tokens revoke it.
Severity: Critical on a token under 30 days old or under $10M valuation. Warning on established or issuer-backed tokens, where it is normal (stablecoins mint on demand).

Freeze authority

Reads: Whether an authority can freeze token accounts.
Source: The mint account, read directly from the chain.
Why it matters: A frozen account cannot sell. On a memecoin there is almost no honest reason for it.
Severity: Critical when young or small; warning on established tokens, where regulated issuers use it for compliance.

Token-2022 extensions

Reads: Permanent delegate, transfer hook, transfer fee, default-frozen, non-transferable, pausable, mint-close authority.
Source: The extension list on the mint, parsed byte by byte. Layouts validated against live mints.
Why it matters: These are the newer ways a token can tax, freeze, or seize your balance without a traditional rug.
Severity: Non-transferable is always critical. Delegate, hook and default-frozen are critical on unverified young tokens and warnings on verified issuers. A transfer fee of 5% or more is critical.

Liquidity

Reads: Total liquidity across every pool for the mint, and its ratio to valuation.
Source: DexScreener, all Solana pairs for the mint.
Why it matters: Thin liquidity means your own sell moves the price, and a valuation far above the pool is a price nobody could actually realise.
Severity: Under $5k critical, under $30k warning. Valuation over 50× liquidity is critical, but only for young or small tokens; large caps trade mostly off-chain and routinely show high ratios.

Launch age

Reads: How long the token has existed.
Source: The earlier of Jupiter's creation date and the oldest pool. A new pool on an old token does not make it young.
Why it matters: Most rugs happen inside the first hours.
Severity: Under an hour or under a day is a warning. Age also gates most other severities.

Holder concentration

Reads: The share of supply held by the largest twenty accounts.
Source: Largest token accounts from the chain; Jupiter audit data when the token has too many holders for the RPC to scan.
Why it matters: A handful of wallets that can end the token whenever they choose usually do.
Severity: Over 60% critical, over 35% warning. When neither source answers, the report says so rather than guessing.

LP status

Reads: Whether the liquidity behind the token can be withdrawn: burned, locked, spread across many holders, or held by one wallet.
Source: Pool accounts read from the chain for Raydium, PumpSwap and Meteora; pools discovered through DexScreener. Weighted across the top three pools by depth.
Why it matters: Whoever holds unburned LP tokens can pull the pool and leave nothing to sell into. This is how most rugs end.
Severity: 95%+ locked in is fine. Under 50% is critical on young tokens and a warning on established ones. Concentrated-liquidity pools have no LP token to burn; that is stated, not scored as safe. Raydium's own burn figures matched ours to the decimal in testing, and ours also count LP sent to the incinerator.

Sell route

Reads: Whether a $10 position can be sold right now, and how much the price moves.
Source: A live Jupiter sell quote at the moment of the check.
Why it matters: A token you cannot sell is a honeypot no matter what else looks fine.
Severity: No route is critical. A $10 sell moving the price more than 10% is critical; more than 2% is a warning.

Deployer history

Reads: How many tokens the deployer has launched, how many graduated, and how much of this one they still hold.
Source: Jupiter audit data. The Deployer page goes further, from the wallet's own creation transactions.
Why it matters: A wallet with twelve dead launches is telling you what the thirteenth will be.
Severity: Six or more launches is critical, two to five a warning. A thousand or more is a launch service, flagged as such because the real creator is hidden. A dev bag over 20% of supply is critical.

Exit quote

Reads: For the exact amount you entered: what selling straight back would return.
Source: Two live Jupiter quotes, the buy and the reverse.
Why it matters: It is the one number every trader understands: how much of my money disappears just turning around.
Severity: Shown as a percentage. Red at 15% or more, or when no sell route exists. Informational; it does not block on its own.

Robinhood Chain

The Robinhood Chain check asks the same questions of an EVM token, where every token is its own contract. Reading is not enough there, so the check also runs a simulated sell by a real holder at the current block. Swaps there: buy with ETH or USDG, or sell back, through Uniswap or the Pons launchpad curve, signed in your own EVM wallet, with the same platform fee on Uniswap pools (none on a curve) and the same block-and-acknowledge rule as on Solana. Token-to-token pairs are not routed.

Verified source

Reads: Whether the contract's source code is published and matches the bytecode.
Source: Blockscout contract verification.
Why it matters: An unverified contract can do anything; a verified one can be read. The rest of the report is more certain when the source is there.
Severity: Unverified is a warning on young or small tokens. When the explorer is unreachable the report says so rather than guessing.

Owner powers

Reads: Mint functions, blacklist/pause/trading switches, and fee setters; whether owner() is live, renounced or absent.
Source: The verified ABI, or 4-byte selectors found in the bytecode when there is no source. owner() read from the chain.
Why it matters: These are the EVM equivalents of mint and freeze authority. A live owner with a blacklist function can stop you selling after you have bought.
Severity: Mint or blocking powers with a live owner are critical on young or small tokens and warnings on established ones. Blocking powers on a young token are 'hard'. Renounced ownership with no such functions is fine.

Upgradeable proxy

Reads: The EIP-1967 implementation slot.
Source: Storage read from the chain.
Why it matters: A proxy's code can be replaced. Everything else in the report describes today's logic only.
Severity: Critical on young or small tokens, warning on established ones (issuers use proxies for upgrades).

Simulated transfer and tax

Reads: Whether a real holder can move tokens to a plain wallet and to the pool, and how much arrives.
Source: eth_call with a state override that lends Multicall3's code to a real holder's address for one simulated call. Nothing is broadcast.
Why it matters: Honeypots let wallet-to-wallet transfers through and block the sell. Hidden taxes only show when you count what arrives.
Severity: Transfers blocked everywhere or only to the pool: critical and hard. A measured tax of 5% or more is critical; any tax is a warning.

Simulated sell

Reads: A ~$10 sell by a real holder through the deepest pool: Uniswap v2 via the pair, v3 via the router, v4 via the quoter.
Source: The same state-override simulation, plus the pool's own maths for the expected amount.
Why it matters: A token you cannot sell is a honeypot whatever else looks fine. A sell that returns far less than the pool promised has a tax hiding in the token.
Severity: A reverted sell is critical and hard. Receiving over 5% less than the pool's quote is a warning, over 25% critical. Price impact over 10% critical, over 2% warning.

Liquidity and valuation

Reads: Total liquidity across every Robinhood Chain pool, its ratio to valuation, and the token's age.
Source: DexScreener; GeckoTerminal for launchpad curves DexScreener has not listed; contract creation time from Blockscout.
Why it matters: Same as Solana: thin pools cost you on exit, and a valuation far above the pool is a price nobody can realise.
Severity: Under $5k critical, under $30k warning. Valuation over 50× liquidity critical on young or small tokens. Under a day old is a warning.

LP status

Reads: For Uniswap v2 pairs: the share of LP tokens burned or held by lock contracts, and the largest LP holder. For v3 and v4 pools: stated as withdrawable.
Source: Pair supply and burn balances from the chain; LP holders from Blockscout; GoPlus position holders where our own read cannot score the pool.
Why it matters: Whoever holds unburned LP can pull the pool.
Severity: 95%+ burned or locked is fine. One wallet with half the LP is critical on young tokens. v3/v4 liquidity is never scored as safe; launchpad curves are a warning until graduation.

Uniswap v4 pool fee and hook

Reads: The pool's fee, whether it is dynamic, and whether a hook contract is attached.
Source: The pool key from the PositionManager, else the PoolManager's Initialize event for the pool id.
Why it matters: A 90% swap fee or a dynamic fee set by a hook is a tax on exit dressed as a pool setting. Hooks are arbitrary code that runs on every swap.
Severity: Fee of 5% or more is critical; dynamic fee is critical on young tokens; any custom hook is a warning on young tokens.

Holder concentration

Reads: The share of circulating supply held by the top twenty wallets, with pools, launchpad curves and burn addresses excluded.
Source: Top holders from Blockscout, GoPlus when the explorer has not indexed them yet.
Why it matters: A handful of wallets that can end the token whenever they choose usually do.
Severity: Over 60% critical, over 35% warning. When neither source has data yet, the report says so.

Deployer

Reads: Who created the contract (the person behind a factory launch, not the factory), how many contracts they have launched recently, and how much of this token they hold.
Source: Creation transaction and recent transactions from Blockscout; balanceOf from the chain.
Why it matters: A wallet with a string of dead launches is telling you what the next one will be.
Severity: Six or more recent launches is critical, two to five a warning. A deployer bag over 20% of supply is critical.

Copycat ticker

Reads: Whether another Robinhood Chain token with the same ticker has far more liquidity.
Source: DexScreener search by ticker.
Why it matters: Copycats of CASHCAT, HOOD and stock tickers are the most common scam on the new chain.
Severity: A same-ticker token with 5× the liquidity (and at least $50k) is critical on young tokens.

GoPlus security data

Reads: Honeypot, buy and sell tax, hidden owner, self-destruct, trading cooldown and cannot-sell-all flags.
Source: GoPlus Security API for chain 4663.
Why it matters: A second opinion from a different simulation catches what a selector scan misses.
Severity: Only fills gaps: a GoPlus flag never downgrades a finding our own simulation made, and each one names GoPlus as its source.

How a verdict is formed

Any critical finding makes the verdict Do not swap this and disables the swap button. You can proceed only after acknowledging every critical signal in a dialog, and not at all when a signal means you could not sell (frozen, non-transferable, no sell route). Warnings only give Proceed carefully. No warnings give Nothing alarming found, which is exactly what it says. Reports are cached for 45 seconds; every finding shows its source and how old it is.