You are right, in fact there is a very common practice in trading that has been applied for months, all this was started by the NFT games and consists of participating in a whitelist to buy tokens in a private sale, then in the public sale sell at the pump, this way a good profit can be made, of course there are people who like games, but since many NFT games have been in decline, what they are already opting for is private sales and then public sale . Of course this does not imply marrying the token or currency, and although it is risky, many who take this risk have obtained good returns.
This is still being done no? I know a few groups that has been doing this and they've been profiting quite well from the strategy. Honestly, I'd recommend only doing this strategy if you have plenty of money to spare for trading, it could bring profits but there is a HUGE chance that the project you're going to invest into would turn into a dud. I'm pretty sure it's quantity over quality in these cases, so the more money you can use to invest in different projects, the higher chances of you profiting off. Well with risk comes with rewards after all so I guess it's a natural, just that again, it depends on your starting budget.