Lesson 04 · Unit 5 · Solana
Mutable metadata
A token's name, symbol and logo are not carved into the mint — they live in a metadata account, and that account has an update authority of its own. While it is live, everything you recognise the token BY can be rewritten: the name, the ticker, the image, the links. The mint address is the only identity that cannot lie.
The token that changed clothes
A dead meme coin's metadata was quietly updated: new name, new logo, matching a trending narrative. Holders of the old token woke up holding the 'new' one; buyers of the new narrative were buying a two-month-old abandoned mint with the deployer still holding 30%.
Nothing on-chain changed except the costume. Everyone who identified the token by its name bought the past, repackaged.
Do
Identify a token by its mint address, always
Check whether metadata is mutable before trusting a rebrand
Treat a metadata change on an old mint as a fresh launch's worth of risk
Don't
Trust a name or logo as identity
Assume a familiar ticker is the token you remember
Read 'immutable' on metadata as a safety guarantee by itself
Where this goes next
A token that can rename itself is impersonation with the chain's help — and one of the trap signals the scanner watches for.