I look at whether the project is actually doing real work—before even looking at the PPT—starting with treasury expenditures: where the money went, whether they keep shuffling it back and forth among the same addresses. I especially dislike how they always write “consulting fee/marketing fee” as one big lump, while milestones are forever “on the way”… Put simply, if they’re truly doing the work, the spending will line up with the deliverables—even if it’s slower. You can still see patch-style small fixes: documentation updated, contract upgrade records in place, bug fixes with retrospectives—not just opening up space and shouting slogans.

Recently, there’s been another round of attention cycling driven by Memes and celebrity trading calls. It makes my scalp crawl. Newcomers shouldn’t always try to take the last baton. There are projects where the treasury is paying for “buzz,” and in the end, all you have left is to sit in the group as the hype person. Anyway, I’d rather look at how they spend the money and how they turn in their work first—then decide whether to tag along and “run along.”