Rug Pull

A rug pull is a crypto scam in which the people behind a token or project suddenly withdraw the pooled liquidity or drain the project treasury, leaving holders with an asset they can no longer sell at any meaningful price. It is also called an exit scam. Rug pulls are most common with newly launched tokens on decentralised exchanges, where anyone can create a market with almost no scrutiny. A hard rug pull relies on code written so the deployer can seize funds or block selling; a soft rug pull is simply the team abandoning the project after quietly selling its own allocation. Warning signs include anonymous teams, unlocked liquidity, contracts the deployer can change at will, and marketing that talks about returns instead of the product.