the private agreement does not seem transparent, speculation does not produce the ideal scenario.
There are many factors for this like community size and community support for the project , projects partnership with other exchanges and so on and the list goes on like that.
I remember some decentralised exchanges (EtherDelta, Forkdelta) which are big scam, and well known as unsecured.
I think you are not familiar with these exchanges then. Etherdelta had to shut down because of legal problems with US and Forkdelta is still operational and I think many people are using it safely till now. Even I had used it in the past. But I am not here to discuss the scenario of other exchanges here.
If you want you can go through the smart contract of our dex , it is openly available . There is not only about the fee. If you accept shady project just to have more listed currencies, it means if you are in the mood to operate with fraudsters, what we can expect from you?
Kindly note I havent mentioned anywhere that we are open to list shady projects. We have only mentioned that at present our listing fee is low as a part of the dex promotion.