CTO (community takeover)

A CTO, or community takeover, happens when a token's creator has sold their tokens or stopped working on it and the holders decide to run the project themselves. They open a new X account and Telegram group, make memes and often pay for a new token profile on aggregators such as DexScreener.

A CTO does not change the contract. If the creator kept any authorities, such as mint authority, they can still use them. Only the people speaking for the token change. Some takeovers build a genuine community, but the CTO label is also used as marketing by groups that bought cheap after the token was abandoned and are now looking for buyers.