How to check a new Solana token for risk

• Liquidity: under $25K is thin, under $5K very thin; also compare it with the valuation.
• Pair age: the first hour and the first day are the most volatile.
• Mint authority: if active, the supply can still grow.
• Freeze authority: if active, token accounts can be frozen.
• Holders: top 10 holding over 40% of supply, or one wallet over 10%, means a few sellers can move the price.
• Trading pattern: almost only buys, almost only sells, or volume far above liquidity.
• Price action: a parabolic spike or a sharp drawdown in the last hour.
• Missing information: no website, no socials, no price or valuation data.

The thresholds below are the ones RateKite's Risk Score uses. Every token page shows how many points each factor added, so you can run this checklist in a few seconds.

Liquidity is the value held in the token's trading pool. It decides how far the price moves when someone sells. In a $5,000 pool, a sale of a few hundred dollars can move the price by several percent, and a large holder selling can drain most of the pool's value.

RateKite adds up to 30 risk points for liquidity: 30 under $5K, 25 under $25K, 15 under $50K, 8 under $100K and 3 under $250K. Unknown liquidity (common on bonding-curve launches) adds 20, because not knowing it is a risk in itself. See bonding curves.

Compare liquidity with the valuation too. A token "worth" $10 million with $50,000 of liquidity is backed by 0.5% of its paper value; under 2% adds 10 points, under 5% adds 5.

A brand-new pair has no trading history, and early hours are when insiders, bots and snipers are most active. RateKite adds 20 points for pairs under 1 hour old, 15 under 6 hours, 10 under a day and 4 under a week. Pairs created in the last 72 hours are listed on new tokens.

If the token's mint authority is still active, whoever holds that key can create new tokens at any time and sell them into the pool. A revoked mint authority means the supply is fixed for good. An active mint authority adds 10 points. Mint authority explained.

An active freeze authority can freeze any account holding the token, so the balance can no longer be transferred or sold until it is thawed. Regulated stablecoins keep this power; on a new memecoin it is a warning sign. It adds 5 points. Freeze authority explained.

When a handful of wallets own most of the supply, any one of them selling can move the price sharply. RateKite looks at the share held by the ten largest holders, with liquidity-pool accounts excluded: over 25% adds 6 points, over 40% adds 12, over 60% adds 20. The single largest holder adds 3 points above 5%, 8 above 10% and 15 above 25%.

Holder data comes from an optional on-chain source and covers the 20 largest accounts. When it is missing, the token page shows these factors as not available; they add no points, so check holders on a block explorer yourself. More in how to read holder concentration.

• One-sided flow. With at least 30 transactions, under 30% buys signals heavy selling (10 points). Over 92% buys adds 8 points: it can mean bots, or that selling is restricted (see honeypot tokens).
• Turnover. 24-hour volume above 20 times liquidity adds 5 points, above 50 times adds 10. Volume that large relative to the pool is often wash trading.
• Very little activity. Under 20 transactions or under $1,000 of volume in 24 hours adds 10 points; under 100 transactions adds 5.

A drop of more than 40% in an hour or 70% in a day, or a rise of more than 200% in an hour or 1,000% in a day, adds 15 points. Smaller extremes (over 100% in an hour, over 300% in a day) add 10, and a fall of more than 40% over 24 hours adds 8. Parabolic moves tend to reverse; deep drawdowns often mean large holders are exiting.

A token with no price data, no valuation, no name or symbol, or no website and socials gives you less to verify. Each gap adds a few points, up to 10 in total.

The score only reads public market and token data. It does not check:

• whether the pool's liquidity is locked or burned, or can be withdrawn (see rug pulls and liquidity locks);
• Token-2022 extensions that add other powers, such as transfer fees, transfer hooks or a permanent delegate;
• whether the token can actually be sold: some restrictions show only on a sale;
• who is behind the project and whether its claims are true.

Check these on a block explorer and the project's own channels. Read the score levels as: under 25 low, 25–49 moderate, 50–74 high, 75 and above very high. The full rules are in the methodology.