A honeypot is the cleanest way to drain a trading bot on Solana: the token lets you buy, but there is no way to sell. Your agent spends real USDC, receives tokens, and then discovers the exit is welded shut. The position is worth zero and there is nothing to do about it.
Honeypots don't show up on a price chart — the chart looks great, because everyone can buy and nobody can sell. You only find out at exit. So the check has to happen before the buy.
What makes a Solana token a honeypot
No live sell route — there is simply no route back to USDC/SOL on any DEX. The most common case.
Transfer restrictions — Token-2022 extensions like transferHook or pausable let the creator block transfers (and therefore sells).
