When most people hear the word honeypot, they imagine a token you simply cannot sell. That is true for one type. But there is a second type that is harder to spot, harder to prove, and in many ways more dangerous. Understanding the difference between soft and hard honeypots is fundamental to staying safe in DeFi.
What Is a Hard Honeypot?
A hard honeypot is a token where selling is technically impossible for most or all wallets. The contract contains code that causes every sell transaction to revert. Buyers can purchase the token but the sell will always fail, no matter what.
Hard honeypots are the easiest to detect because a sell simulation will fail immediately. Any decent scanner catches them. As a result, they are becoming less common as scammers shift to more sophisticated techniques.
function _transfer(address from, address to, uint256 amount) internal {
if (to == uniswapPair) {
revert("ERC20: transfer failed");
}
// buys work fine, sells always revert
}
Sell simulation fails immediately. Every sell transaction reverts. Zero sell volume on-chain despite active buy volume. Scanner flags it instantly.
What Is a Soft Honeypot?
A soft honeypot is far more deceptive. Selling is technically possible but economically impossible or practically pointless. The contract allows the transaction to complete but ensures the seller receives nothing, almost nothing, or loses more than they gain.
“A soft honeypot lets you sell. It just makes sure you get nothing when you do.”
Soft honeypots pass sell simulations. They pass basic checks. They look clean on the surface. The trap only becomes clear when a real user tries to exit with a meaningful amount.
Common Soft Honeypot Mechanisms
- 99% sell tax — The sell goes through but 99% of the proceeds are taken as tax. You receive 1% of your investment back.
- Extreme slippage requirements — The contract requires 80-99% slippage tolerance to sell. Most wallets reject this automatically. Buyers are stuck unless they manually set extreme slippage.
- Fake liquidity — The pool appears to have liquidity but it is controlled by the deployer and withdrawn the moment sells begin.
- Reflection tax traps — The contract claims to redistribute taxes to holders but the redistribution logic is broken or routes funds back to the deployer.
- Transfer cooldowns — Sells are allowed but only once every 24 hours, or only below a tiny maximum amount, making it practically impossible to exit a real position.
Side by Side Comparison
| Property | Soft Honeypot | Hard Honeypot |
|---|---|---|
| Can you sell? | Yes — technically | No — always reverts |
| Do you get money back? | Rarely or nothing | Never |
| Passes simulation? | Usually yes | No |
| Detectable by basic scanners? | Often no | Yes |
| How common in 2026? | Very common | Declining |
| Danger level | High — harder to prove | High — easy to lose everything |
Why Soft Honeypots Are More Dangerous
Hard honeypots are blunt instruments. They are easy to detect, easy to prove, and the community quickly blacklists them. Soft honeypots are surgical. They exploit the gap between what is technically possible and what is practically achievable.
When a victim of a soft honeypot complains, the deployer can point to the fact that sells are technically enabled. The tax is disclosed in the contract. The slippage requirement is there in the code. The victim made a choice to buy. This makes soft honeypots significantly harder to prosecute and easier for scammers to defend.
DexScanr flags hard honeypots through simulation failure detection. For soft honeypots, it reads the actual on-chain tax values, checks for transfer restrictions, analyzes ownership for privileged tax-change functions, and scores the overall risk. Both types result in a low safety score and a clear warning before you buy.
How to Protect Yourself
- Check the actual sell tax on-chain — not the number the project claims, but the value stored in the contract right now
- Verify ownership status — if the deployer can change the tax after launch, assume they will
- Check liquidity lock — unlocked liquidity can be pulled at any time on any chain
- Look at sell volume — if there is heavy buy volume but almost no sell volume, that is a red flag regardless of what the scanner says
- Use a scanner that goes beyond simulation — simulation alone misses most soft honeypots
🛡️ Check Any Token for Both Types
DexScanr detects hard and soft honeypots, reads live tax values, checks ownership risk, and gives you a single safety score before you buy.
Install DexScanr Free →Summary
Hard honeypots block sells entirely and are caught by basic simulation. Soft honeypots allow sells but make them economically useless — and they pass most standard checks. In 2026, soft honeypots are the dominant type. Always verify the actual on-chain tax, ownership controls, and liquidity status before buying any token, regardless of what a simulation result shows.