What to do if you cannot sell a crypto token
If a platform or wallet prevents you from selling a newly purchased crypto token, you have likely bought a malicious honeypot asset designed only to take deposits. You must stop putting more money into the contract and secure your remaining assets immediately.
- This fraud happens when programmers deploy a custom asset with altered rules that allow the public to buy units freely while restricting the code so only the creators can sell or withdraw liquidity.
- A key warning sign is an asset showing massive rapid price gains on decentralised markets while public trade histories show only purchase orders and no ordinary investors successfully executing sales.
- Disconnect your wallet from the decentralised trading site straight away, revoke any active smart contract permissions linked to that specific asset, and never send extra funds demanded to unlock trading.
- Preserve all records of the event, including the exact smart contract address, the transaction hashes from your wallet, swap confirmation screens, and any social media channels where the asset was promoted.
- Report the incident directly to Action Fraud and inform your UK bank if you recently bought the cryptocurrency using a debit card, credit card, or domestic bank transfer to fund the swap.
- An onchain trace can map where your purchase funds moved after hitting the pool and identify deposit addresses at regulated exchanges, but it cannot alter the malicious contract code to make the tokens sellable.
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Written by the Wallsec investigations team. General information only, not legal or financial advice.
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