To see whether the project team is actually working, I now prefer to look at treasury expenditures rather than the "roadmap": where the money is spent, whether milestones are met after spending, in other words, matching invoices to project progress. I feel more at ease when I see stable spending on salaries, audits, and infrastructure; a bunch of "market collaborations" and "ecosystem incentives" without any output screenshots seem a bit hollow.

Recently, cross-chain bridges have been hacked again, and oracles have reported abnormal quotes. Everyone suddenly learned to "wait for confirmation," which I think is quite normal: when it comes to security, the biggest fear is being stubborn. A team that is genuinely working will allocate budget in the treasury for audits and bounties, and if something goes wrong, they will clearly write a post-mortem, not just issue announcements to soothe.

I personally remember one word: reconciliation. After a while, when I look back, whether expenditures match milestones, I can basically filter out half of the "great storytellers."