Key takeaways:
Builders: Look for active repositories, steady commits and external validation to confirm real progress.
Usage: Fees and retained revenue matter more than hype — use clean, consistent definitions.
Liquidity: Depth and spread across venues show true tradability, not inflated volumes.
Token design: Check float, fully diluted valuation and unlock cliffs to spot supply overhang.
Security: Audits alone aren’t enough — review who conducted them, when they were done and how upgrades are controlled.
Being early to the table means spotting real progress before the crowd: teams shipping useful code, people actually using the product and designs that won’t collapse at the first unlock or exploit.
There’s plenty to sort through. Developers are shipping across thousands of repositories, while new layer 2s, appchains and protocols launch every week.
This guide offers five simple checks — builders, usage, liquidity, token design and unlocks and security — to help you separate early momentum from a mirage.
1) Builders: Who’s shipping and where
Start with the people and the code. The clearest early sign is a team putting out useful updates in public: multiple active maintainers, recent merges, tests and docs that keep up with new features and recognition in grants or hackathons.
Good places to check include developer reports like Electric Capital for big-picture trends, a project’s GitHub for commit pace and issue activity, hackathon showcases such as ETHGlobal and public grant records like Optimism RetroPGF or Arbitrum.
Steady, consistent progress is better than sudden “big drops,” and builders who win funding or prizes from programs with clear rules and public results stand out. Visible work plus outside validation helps filter out empty projects.
Did you know? Over 18,000 developers contribute each month to open-source Web3 and blockchain projects; Ethereum alone accounts for more than 5,000 active developers monthly.
2) Usage: Are real users doing valuable things?
Once the builders check out, make…
..
