Recently, I saw someone watching large on-chain transfers and hot/cold wallets on exchanges, shouting "Smart money is coming" whenever there was movement.

I couldn't help but laugh, but I also felt a bit annoyed: this has nothing to do with whether a project is reliable or not...

Now when I look at new projects, I don't check Twitter hype first, I check GitHub: is there long-term contribution, not just a bunch of commits in one night;
Are the key changes explained, not just "misc fixes" to brush off.
Don't just look at the cover of the audit report to see who audited it; flip a few pages inside to see how high-risk issues were handled—are they "fixed/accepted risk" or just skipped.
Another thing is multi-signature upgrades: who can sign, how many people, is there any delay (like timelocks), basically, it’s about "needing to pass several gates to change the rules."
I'm the type to fear sudden upgrades right before snapshots...
For now, I prefer slower interactions so I don't get myself into a trap.