Ticker

A ticker is the short code, usually a few capital letters, that identifies a token on exchanges and in wallets, such as HMSTR for Hamster Kombat or ARB for Arbitrum. On Ethereum, an ERC-20 token's ticker is whatever its contract returns from the symbol() function, which the standard lists alongside name() and decimals(). ethereum.org's glossary notes that token factories let anyone deploy new tokens with custom parameters such as name, symbol and supply, so a ticker on its own does not prove which token you are looking at; the contract address does.

That matters most before a launch. Binance's 12 September 2024 notice said it would be the first platform to list HMSTR, with trading from 2024-09-26 12:00 UTC, and that claims to sell the token before then were likely false advertising. The FTC warns that scammers impersonate businesses offering fraudulent coins or tokens. Take the contract address from the project's own docs; see token generation event.