Crypto glossary
Token security scanner
A token security scanner analyses a token contract and its holders to flag honeypots, high taxes, mint rights, unlocked liquidity and concentrated supply.
Scanners such as GoPlus, Token Sniffer, De.Fi and RugCheck read a token's bytecode and on-chain state and often simulate a buy and a sell. Their reports show whether the contract is verified, whether it can mint, pause or blacklist, the current buy and sell taxes, whether ownership is renounced, how much liquidity is locked and what share of supply the top wallets hold.
Memecoin traders, DEX screeners, wallets and trading bots use these checks before buying, and many wallets now warn automatically when a token fails them. For newly launched tokens, where no audit exists and information is scarce, a scanner is often the only fast way to spot obvious traps.
A clean report is not a guarantee. Scanners can miss novel tricks, proxy contracts that change later, off-chain team behaviour or insiders holding supply through many wallets, and they sometimes flag legitimate features such as a stablecoin's freeze function. Results are automated risk scores, not audits, and should be read alongside other evidence.
Example
Before buying a new token on Base, a trader pastes its address into a scanner and sees a 25% sell tax and an unrenounced owner able to blacklist wallets, so she walks away.