Methodology · arc-v5
How Riven scores a launch
Every token gets a score from 1 to 10, built from five parts worth 100 points between them. It's modelled on what established scanners check (Token Sniffer, RugCheck, GoPlus, DEXTools, GMGN and Bubblemaps), rebuilt from scratch on Arc mainnet data. A score only appears once the contract, liquidity and holders have all been measured, because an unscored token is better than a wrong score.
Contract
25 pts · 2.5 of 10What the token's code lets someone do to holders.
- Can anyone still create new tokens (mint)?
- Can the code be swapped out (upgradeable proxy)?
- Can trading be paused or wallets blacklisted?
- How big is the trading fee, and can the creator change it?
Source: Reads the contract bytecode on Arc, following minimal-proxy clones to the real code, and the pool's live fee.
Liquidity
20 pts · 2.0 of 10Whether the pool can be pulled, and whether there's money to sell into.
- Who owns the Uniswap v4 liquidity position: burned, a launchpad locker, or a wallet?
- Has any liquidity already been removed?
- How much USDC is actually left in the pool?
Source: Uniswap v4 PositionManager ownership, every liquidity add/remove on the launch position, and the pool's live liquidity and price (StateView) for the USDC actually in it.
Holders
25 pts · 2.5 of 10Who owns the supply right now.
- Top 10 wallets' share (pool, burns and launchpad contracts excluded)
- How much the creator still holds
- Snipers: wallets that bought in the first ~5 seconds
- Wallets the creator funded with USDC around launch (bundles / insiders)
- Is anyone actually holding, or is everything back in the pool?
Source: Every ERC-20 Transfer of the token since launch, plus the creator's USDC transfers.
Creator
15 pts · 1.5 of 10The track record and behaviour of whoever launched it.
- How many tokens this wallet has launched (serial launchers are capped)
- How much of their own tokens the creator has sold
- Copycats: other tokens using the same name or ticker
Source: Riven's index of every Argus and Tolly launch.
Activity
15 pts · 1.5 of 10Whether real trading is happening.
- Have sells gone through (can you actually get out)?
- Are there real holders, or just dust wallets?
- Wash trading: a day's volume over 50× the USDC in the pool
- Does the project list a website or socials?
Source: Swaps on the token's pool over the last 24 hours.
Automatic red flags
Some things are bad enough that no amount of good elsewhere can hide them, so they cap the score. The worst ones (fake volume, serial launcher, creator sold out, liquidity pulled, dead, impersonation) also flag the token: it's hidden from the default list and shown in the Caught view with the evidence.
- Liquidity already pulled from the launch positionmax 1.9
- Impersonates an official token (USDC, Circle, Arc…)max 1.9
- Contract can still mintmax 2.9
- Trading fee over 10%max 2.9
- Creator launched 10+ tokensmax 2.9
- Most of the creator's past tokens died or dumpedmax 2.9
- Dead: holders own under 1% and nobody traded in 24hmax 3.9
- Churn: holders keep under 1% while traders flip in and outmax 4.9
- Contract is upgradeablemax 4.9
- Creator dumped 75%+ of their tokensmax 4.9
- Trading can be paused / wallets blockedmax 5.9
- Liquidity not lockedmax 5.9
- Creator-funded wallets hold over 20%max 5.9
- Top 10 hold over 40%, or snipers over 30%max 6.9
- Under 6 hours old (probation)max 6.9
- Not proven yet: under 25 holders, under $1k USDC in the pool, or no sellsmax 6.9
Why a token isn't called safe early
A pump-and-dump looks clean in its first minutes: no mint function, locked liquidity, a spread-out holder list. The dump comes later. So Riven never rates a token healthy until it has earned it — at least 6 hours old, 25+ real holders, $1,000+ USDC actually in the pool, and sells going through. Until then the best it can score is 6.9 (“be careful”). And a creator whose earlier tokens died or dumped is marked risky the moment they launch again, before this token has a chance to dump.
What changed in arc-v5
An October 2026 audit found that earlier versions flagged too much. Arc is only weeks old, so “almost everything is fake” needed checking rather than trusting. Fixed:
- USDC in the pool is read from on-chain liquidity, not estimated from swaps (which missed liquidity adds and caused false “fake volume”).
- “Liquidity pulled” now means the launch position was emptied, not that some other LP came and went.
- A creator burning their tokens no longer counts as selling them.
- A busy token whose buyers sell quickly is “churn”, not dead; brand-new tokens are never dead.
- Fake volume needs 50× pool turnover (busy launches routinely do 20×).
- Whale-dump alerts only fire on real sells, not on the launch seeding its own pool.
Think a flag is wrong?
Every flag names the on-chain fact behind it, so it can be checked on the Arc explorer. Scores are recomputed every few minutes from chain data: if the facts change (liquidity added back, real holders arrive), the score follows on its own. If you believe a rule is misreading a token, contact the Riven team with the token address and which flag looks wrong — rules get fixed for everyone, never overridden for one token.
What Riven can't see
- Contract checks read bytecode, not verified source code. A clean scan is strong evidence, not proof.
- Launchpad liquidity locks are judged from the locker's code having no withdraw path.
- Insider detection only follows direct USDC funding from the creator around launch, not multi-hop funding.
- Thresholds are a starting point and haven't been back-tested against outcomes yet.
- Riven indexes every token with a USDC pool on Uniswap v4. Holder checks need a token's full transfer history; older tokens show “Scoring” until it's replayed.
- Prices, liquidity and volume in the screener come from DexScreener for display. The score uses on-chain data; DexScreener's pool figure is only a fallback if the on-chain read fails.
- USDC in the pool uses the pool's active liquidity over the launch range: exact for a single launch position, an estimate once others add liquidity.
The score is never sold: no paid boosts, no paid badges. Not financial advice. DYOR.
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