The airdrop season has started heating up again, and task platforms are acting like security witches, making it feel like clocking in at work... I actually want to see if projects can "last longer."

To judge credibility as a newbie, I look at three things first: don't just look at GitHub stars, click in to see if there are recent commits and if it's just one or two people holding it up; don't blindly trust "audits" just because there's an audit report—focus on whether high/medium risk issues in the conclusions have been fixed, and whether the reproduction steps are clearly written; also check the multi-signature upgrades—who can move the contract, how many keys are needed, and if there's a delay period—these things are more practical than slogans.
Anyway, a rise in TVL could also be smoke, and if wallet net inflows and active addresses don't match, I won't rush in.
And don't get pressured by the leaderboard to click randomly.