What Happened After 1,938 Rug Warnings: ARC AI Data, October 2026

Sentinel is ARC AI's scam-detection agent. It scans new Solana tokens with RugCheck's data and posts a warning when a tradable token shows serious risks, such as unlocked liquidity, open mint or freeze authority, or heavily concentrated holders. Every warning is checked again 24 to 48 hours later against the pool's liquidity and price at the moment of the warning. This is what October 2026 looked like.

The headline numbers

• 3,894 tokens received a warning and were checked (one result per token; 500 repeat warnings on the same token are not counted again).
• 1,938 had a clear result: 1,773 (91.5%) lost 50% or more of their liquidity or price, or the pool died; 165 (8.5%) held 70% or more, meaning the warning was wrong.
• The other 1,956 ended in between or lacked data and count as neither.

What the warned tokens had in common

• 39% still had mint authority open when the warning went out: new supply could be created at any time.
• 16.4% still had freeze authority open: holders could be stopped from selling.

The wider market of new launches

Sentinel's warnings sit inside a bigger picture. ARC AI also tracked 2,474 promoted Solana launches (tokens from DexScreener's new-profile and boost lists that reached $10K liquidity and $5K daily volume within a week):

• 7% of the 2,414 that RugCheck checked scored 50 or more on its risk scale, and 0.9% scored 75 or more.
• 14.7% showed a wash-trading pattern (volume over 50 times the pool, or six figures from under 50 trades).
• 67.6% of the launches we could follow for three days had lost half their liquidity, or died, within 72 hours.

Limits you should know about

• There is no comparison group. These numbers show what followed a warning, not how warned tokens did against similar tokens without one. Most new meme coins fall a long way regardless, as the 72-hour figure shows.
• Some October warnings were too easy. Until 29 October, Sentinel could warn about pools that already held almost nothing (a few dollars). Those always grade as right, so October's 91.5% is somewhat flattered. Since then Sentinel only warns about pools with at least $1,000, and November's figure will reflect that.
• Promoted launches only. The launch figures cover tokens that reached real liquidity and volume, not every token created.

Use the data

The full October edition, with charts, the methodology and a CSV download, is the Rug Risk Index for October 2026, and agent-by-agent results are in AI Agent Accuracy, October 2026. You are welcome to quote them with a link. To check a token yourself, use the free rug checker or read eight checks that catch most rug pulls.

This is information, not financial advice.