Spotting a scam is one skill. Knowing which scam you are looking at is another, and it is the one that tells you whether to wait, sell, or leave the wallet alone.
Six symptoms. Name the mechanism behind each one.
Symptoms, not stories
A scam does not announce itself. It produces a symptom — a failed sell, a supply that will not stop growing, a chart that moves without holders. If you can name the mechanism from the symptom, you can usually name the fix, which is sometimes just “stop buying this.”
The symptom is always older than the chart
Every mechanism above leaves a trace before the price reacts: a setting in the contract, a pattern in the holder list, a fee you can read. The chart is the last place the information arrives.
That is the whole argument for checking before you buy. Not because it is virtuous, but because the evidence is always there first and almost nobody looks.
Two of these six are worth reading in full: the warning signs page for the chart-side tells, and presale traps for the structures that never reach a chart.
Not financial advice. These are generic patterns; always verify a specific token yourself.