What it lets someone do
A token's mint account carries a freeze authority field alongside its
mint authority. The address in that field can freeze
any individual token account holding that token.
A frozen account is not emptied. The holder still owns the balance and can still see it in
their wallet. What they cannot do is transfer it: no sending, no selling, no swapping, no
providing it as liquidity. It sits there, visibly theirs, and completely immobile, until the
freeze authority chooses to unfreeze it.
The freeze is per account, not global. The authority can freeze one holder and leave everyone
else untouched, and there is no notice and no appeal.
How freezing a token account works
Freezing is a single instruction to the token program, signed by the freeze authority,
naming one token account. Thawing is the matching instruction, signed by the same
authority. There is no way to freeze a whole token at once, and no setting a holder can
change to protect their own account.
- Who can do it: only the address in the mint's freeze authority field. On a token minted with Anvilmint without the revoke add-on, that is the creator's wallet.
- What it targets: a token account, which is the account holding one wallet's balance of one token. Freezing a wallet's account for your token does nothing to its SOL or other tokens.
- How to tell an account is frozen: open the holder's token account on Solscan. Its state shows as frozen rather than initialized, and transfers from it fail with an "account is frozen" error.
- NFTs: NFT staking programs often freeze the NFT's token account through a delegate approved by the owner, so the NFT stays in the owner's wallet but cannot move while staked. That is a different arrangement, agreed by the holder, and it is undone when the NFT is unstaked.
If your tokens were frozen by the creator
Only the freeze authority can thaw the account. Nobody else can: not a wallet app, not an
exchange, not Anvilmint, and not a support agent who messages you first. What you can do:
- Confirm it on Solscan. Check that your token account shows as frozen and that the mint still has a freeze authority.
- Contact the project through its own published channels and ask why. Some issuers freeze accounts linked to an exploit and thaw them after review.
- Treat anyone offering to unfreeze tokens for a fee, or asking for your seed phrase, as a scammer. It is not technically possible for them.
- Before buying the next token, check its freeze authority first. A revoked freeze authority makes this impossible.
Why this is the authority people worry about
Mint authority abuse dilutes everyone equally and is visible in the supply figure. Freeze
authority abuse is targeted and silent, which makes it the more dangerous of the two in
practice.
The pattern that gave it its reputation is straightforward: a token launches with freeze
authority live, buyers come in, the price rises, and when holders try to take profit their
accounts are frozen one by one. Selling pressure never materialises because sellers are
physically unable to sell, and the people running it exit into a price that only they can
trade against.
Because that pattern is well known, an unrevoked freeze authority now reads as a warning sign
to experienced buyers regardless of your intentions. That is worth understanding before you
launch: keeping it may cost you buyers who have no way to tell your reasons from someone
else's.
When keeping it is defensible
There are real cases, and they are narrower than most people assume:
- Regulated or permissioned assets. A token representing a real-world instrument may be legally required to support freezing for sanctions screening or a court order.
- Incident response. Some issuers keep it so they can freeze accounts holding tokens drained in an exploit, before those tokens are laundered through a DEX.
- Institutional requirements. A counterparty may require it as a condition of holding the asset at all.
If none of those describe your token, you are keeping a power you will never use, at the cost
of looking like someone who intends to use it. For a community token, a memecoin, or a
straightforward utility token, revoking is usually the better call.
How to check any token
- Open the token's mint address on a Solana explorer such as Solscan.
- Find the authorities section of the mint account.
- Read the freeze authority field. An address means someone can freeze holders. Empty, none, or null means nobody can, permanently.
Check the mint authority in the same panel. They are independent, and a project that revoked
one while quietly keeping the other is telling you something.
Revoking on Anvilmint
Freeze authority revocation is an optional add-on at 0.1 SOL,
applied during the launch. It is off by default. Like every irreversible option on the site,
the confirmation screen states that it is permanent before your wallet opens.
If you are launching a fee-on-transfer token, note that
revoking freeze authority has no effect on your ability to collect transfer fees. Those are
governed by a separate withdraw authority, which always stays with your wallet.