Token Safety Scores Explained — How to Use Them

One of the most important features in Coinibi is the token safety score. But what does that score actually mean? How is it calculated? And most importantly, how should you use it to make decisions about whether to buy a token? This guide explains everything you need to know.

What Is a Safety Score?

A token safety score is a number from 0 to 100 that represents how much confidence we have that a token is legitimate and safe. A score of 100 means we've detected no red flags. A score of 0 means the token exhibits all the characteristics of a known scam. Scores between those extremes represent varying levels of risk.

The score is not a guarantee. A high score doesn't mean the token can't fail or have issues. A low score doesn't absolutely mean it's a scam. The score is a heuristic tool that helps you quickly assess relative risk.

The Eight Safety Heuristics

Coinibi's safety score is built from eight different checks. Each check looks at a different dimension of token risk. Here's what we examine:

1. Liquidity Lock

This checks whether the token's liquidity has been locked by the deployer. A liquidity lock means the deployer has frozen the liquidity pool for a set period, preventing them from immediately removing all funds (which would be a rug pull).

We look at two things: whether a lock exists, and how long it's locked for. A lock of at least 6 months is generally considered good. Locks shorter than that are less protective. No lock at all is a major red flag.

2. Contract Verification

Contract verification means the deployer has uploaded the original source code to a block explorer and it matches the deployed bytecode. This allows anyone to read and audit the contract code.

Verified contracts are much lower risk because you can see exactly what the code does. Unverified contracts could hide malicious functionality. Many legitimate projects verify their contracts immediately. Scammers often don't.

3. Mint Authority

This checks whether the deployer can mint additional tokens after launch. If the deployer can mint, they can inflate the supply at any time, diluting your holdings.

For tokens with legitimate use cases, deployers either renounce mint authority entirely or put it under community control through a governance contract. If the deployer has unrestricted mint authority, it's a significant risk.

4. Ownership Renounced

Similar to mint authority, this checks whether the deployer has renounced ownership of the contract. When ownership is renounced, no one can change critical contract parameters like fees, trading rules, or transfer restrictions.

Renounced ownership is a strong signal that the project intends to be decentralized and can't be changed by the deployer. It doesn't guarantee success, but it removes a major vector for abuse.

5. Honeypot Detection

A honeypot is a token that can be bought but not sold, or has hidden trading restrictions. We detect this by simulating a token purchase and sale on-chain, without actually executing the transaction. If the simulation shows you can't sell after buying, the token is a honeypot.

Honeypots are one of the most common scams in crypto. Detecting them is critical to safety. Use our Rug Radar to scan for honeypots. A token that fails the honeypot check has a severe red flag.

6. Top Holder Concentration

This examines what percentage of the token supply is held by the top 10 holders. Extreme concentration (where a few holders own 50%+ of the supply) is a risk because those holders could dump their tokens and crash the price.

We look for healthy distribution. A score of 100 might mean the top 10 holders have less than 30% of the supply. A score of 0 might mean they have more than 70%. Concentration isn't automatically bad (founders and early investors naturally hold large amounts), but extreme concentration is risky.

7. Trading Patterns

We analyze the trading volume, price movements, and trading patterns across DEXs. We look for signs of manipulation like extreme price swings immediately after launch, wash trading (artificially inflated volume), or other suspicious patterns.

A token with steady, organic trading volume and reasonable price discovery is lower risk. A token that immediately spikes 1000% with minimal volume is more suspicious.

8. Social Presence

We check whether the project has documented social media accounts (Twitter, Discord, website, etc.). Legitimate projects almost always have these. Tokens with no social presence are more likely to be low-effort scams.

This isn't foolproof — scammers can create fake social accounts — but it's one signal among many.

How Scores Are Calculated

Each of the eight heuristics is evaluated and scored from 0 to 100. The final safety score is a weighted combination of these eight scores, with some heuristics weighted more heavily because they're more indicative of actual scams.

Honeypot detection, for example, is weighted very heavily because a honeypot is a definitive scam. A token that fails this check will have a very low safety score. Liquidity lock and contract verification are also weighted heavily. Trading patterns and social presence have lighter weight because they're less conclusive.

We continuously refine these weights based on real-world data — looking at which combination of factors actually predicts which tokens will fail or succeed.

Interpreting Your Score

Here's a rough guide to interpreting Coinibi safety scores:

How to Use Safety Scores

The safety score is a starting point for your analysis, not the end. Here's how we recommend using it:

Filtering: Use the score to quickly filter out obvious scams. Tokens under 40 are probably not worth your time.Prioritization: Focus your research on tokens with high scores first. They're more likely to be worth your time.Investigation: When you see a token with a moderate score (60-79), click into the details and see which heuristics triggered the lower score. Maybe it's a low liquidity lock (fixable) or unverified contract (researchable).Complement: Always do your own research. Read the whitepaper, check the team, join the Discord, analyze the tokenomics. The safety score is one input, not the whole picture.

What Safety Scores Don't Tell You

It's important to understand the limitations of safety scores. A high score means the token isn't obviously a scam. It doesn't mean:

The project is well-funded or has a viable business modelThe token will increase in valueThe project won't fail or run out of moneyThe team is experienced or trustworthyThe market demand exists for what they're building

These are all things you need to evaluate separately through your own research.

Improving Over Time

Our safety scoring methodology is constantly evolving. As scammers develop new tactics, we add new heuristics to detect them. Explore our crypto glossary to learn the terminology. As we observe which combinations of factors best predict scams, we adjust our weights.

We also learn from the community. If you discover a token with a high score that turns out to be a scam, let us know. That feedback helps us improve the algorithm for everyone.