I have some suspicion a coin I'm staking had a team take over it that "cooked it's books" somehow. The wallet keeps stalling and will not sync, and there are others on the thread/channel that say they are able to sync and stake. This has happened a number of times since a person took over the development. The blockchain their new coin creates never works for more than a few weeks but supposedly for a couple people it does. Many chime in on the thread that they are not able to sync.
I know behind the scenes at the code level (or maybe node level) there is a lot of control a developer can have. Is it possible for a corrupt team to make it that only certain people are getting stakes?
Yes, that's a red flag already, it the wallet keeps stalling and not synching. May I know if the wallet is open source or some sort of Github repo? Otherwise, it's another red flag that you need to look at. Because if it is close source then you don't see what's going on behind and obviously the developer will have full control of it.
And look at the thread and the discussions, if those few are just newbies saying that it work on their end, then probably that is a paid shill or the team itself. And specially if the thread is a self-mod and keeps deleting post which criticised their wallet, then stay away for good.