VC endorsement used to be a solid indicator of project quality. But now? To put it bluntly—the more of a vaporware project it is, the more they love to bring in a bunch of investment firms just for show.

The trick is actually pretty simple: they claim externally to have raised tens of millions of dollars, but in reality, the actual funds received might not even come close. The sole purpose is to create the illusion that "top-tier institutions are betting on this" to lure in retail investors. This kind of operation has become an open secret in the industry.

So when evaluating projects now, just looking at the list of investors isn’t enough. You have to check real progress, code commits, community activity—those hard metrics that can’t be faked.