Solana trading glossary
Soft rug vs hard rug: what is the difference?
Also called: Soft rug, Hard rug, Slow rug
A hard rug uses a technical power (pulling the pool, minting, freezing) to take value at once. A soft rug is insiders selling down over time and abandoning the token.
A hard rug is sudden and usually uses a power the contract or pool still grants: the team withdraws the pool's liquidity, mints a large amount of new supply and sells it, or freezes buyers' wallets so only they can sell. The price can go to near zero in one or two transactions.
A soft rug needs no special power. The team or early insiders hold a lot of the supply, sell it steadily into buyers, and then stop working on the project. It looks like a normal decline at first, which is why it is harder to spot and harder to call a scam.
Why it matters before you trade
The checks that protect you differ. Revoked authorities and a burned or locked pool rule out most hard rugs. They say nothing about a soft rug, where the warning signs are concentrated holdings, linked wallets and insiders who have been selling.
How NAVI shows it
The rug check on each token page covers the hard-rug powers: mint authority, freeze authority and the liquidity lock. For soft-rug risk, the same page shows the top-10 wallet share, and the bubble map shows whether the largest wallets are linked to each other.
Related terms
- Rug pullWhen the people behind a token remove its value, by pulling liquidity, printing supply or dumping a large hidden stake, and leave holders unable to sell at a fair price.
- Insider walletsWallets connected to a token's team or launch, usually funded by the creator or buying before the public, that hold supply at a cost ordinary buyers could not get.
- Holder concentrationHow much of a token's supply is held by a small number of wallets. The higher it is, the more a few sellers can move the price.
Last reviewed 2026-09-25. NAVI is informational only and nothing here is financial advice.