A copycat token is a coin that reuses the name or ticker of another coin, usually one that people are already talking about. On Solana there is nothing stopping anyone from launching a token with any name, ticker and logo they like. The only thing that identifies a coin for certain is its contract address, so if you buy by name you can easily end up with a copy.
Why copycats exist
When a coin starts trending, people search for it by name. Copycat creators launch tokens with the same ticker and a similar logo, then catch some of the buyers who search too quickly or click the wrong result. Some copies are cheap jokes. Some are set up to sell straight into confused buyers and disappear.
Copycats also appear around news. When a new meme, a celebrity post or a big event goes viral, dozens of tokens with the same name can launch within minutes. None of them is "the real one" in any meaningful sense, but the earliest tends to collect the attention, and the later ones trade on that.
Names and tickers are not unique
This catches out a lot of beginners. On a stock exchange, a ticker belongs to one company. On Solana:
- Any number of tokens can share a ticker.
- Any number of tokens can share a name and a logo.
- Each token has its own contract address (also called the mint address or CA), a long string of letters and numbers. This is the only thing that cannot be copied.
When you search a ticker on DexScreener, Jupiter or a trading bot, you may get several results. The one at the top is not necessarily the one you meant.
Warning: Always get the contract address from a source you trust and paste it, rather than searching by name. Check the first and last few characters match before you confirm any trade.
How copycats hurt buyers
- You buy the wrong coin. It may have a fraction of the liquidity and holders of the coin you wanted.
- The copy is often set up badly or deliberately. Copycats are more likely to have concentrated holders, unlocked liquidity or active authorities, because they are built quickly to catch passing buyers.
- Fake links. A copycat may point its "official" website or socials at pages that look like the original project.
- Confusing charts. Screenshots of a copycat's chart get shared as if they were the original, or the other way round.
How we detect copycats
Our copycat check compares tickers across all the coins we track.
- We make every ticker lower case and strip out anything that is not a letter or a number. So "$FROG", "Frog" and "FR-OG" all become "frog".
- We only compare coins with a market cap of at least $10,000, to avoid flagging dust.
- When two or more coins share the same ticker, the one whose trading pair was created first counts as the original.
- Every later coin with that ticker is marked as a copycat and gets 2 points.
The coin's page shows which older coin it copies, so you can compare them side by side.
| What we see | Points |
|---|---|
| Another coin we track with the same ticker was created first | 2 |
Two points alone is a C. It is a prompt to check you have the coin you meant, not a judgement on the coin itself.
What our copycat check cannot do
Be clear about what this flag means and does not mean.
- First is not the same as legitimate. The oldest coin with a ticker is not automatically the "real" or honest one. It only means it came first among the coins we track.
- We only see coins we track. If the original launched before we started watching, or never reached $10,000 market cap while we were watching, the first coin we saw may itself be a copy.
- Not every copy is malicious. Two unrelated teams can pick the same popular word. Common tickers get reused all the time.
- Near misses are not caught. A copy that changes one letter, adds a number or uses a look-alike character will not match. "FR0G" with a zero is a different ticker to our check.
- Copied names with different tickers are not caught. We compare tickers, not full names or logos.
How to make sure you have the right coin
- Get the contract address from the source. Use the project's own website or official account, and check it in more than one place. Be wary of addresses posted in replies or comments.
- Compare the address. Check at least the first and last six characters against the one you are about to buy.
- Check the age. On DexScreener, look at when the pair was created. If the coin you are looking at is hours old but the one everyone is talking about has been trading for weeks, you have a copy.
- Check the numbers. Compare liquidity, holders and volume. The coin people mean will usually have far more of all three.
- Look at the copycat flag. Paste the address into the search box on Before It Rugs. If we have marked it as a copycat, the page shows the older coin it copies.
- Watch for look-alike characters. Zero and capital O, lower-case L and capital I, and letters from other alphabets can all look identical in some fonts.
Copycats and pump.fun
Pump.fun makes launching a token quick and cheap, so popular names are copied there constantly. Many pump.fun contract addresses end in the letters "pump", but that ending does not tell you anything about which of several same-named coins is the one you want. Check the address itself. See what is pump.fun for how launches work.
Related
- What is a rug pull? The main types on Solana
- Are DexScreener boosts and paid profiles a red flag?
- What is Jupiter?
- Wallet safety basics