There is no concrete indicator regarding how to identify a scam project, when the creators were doing shady things and the community was starting to understand it, and when it would be the ideal moment to exit the project. You must be aware of the developer's background, whether there have been any instances of plagiarism in the project, and many other factors. You should look into the scam allegation areas. When the creators were performing one or two dubious actions, it may be an indication that the project would quickly turn into another scam enterprise. If you don't want to be scammed, don't invest in a high-risk project.
Therefore, try as much as possible not to be in a new project, if this type of person does not want to risk being cheated. The concept is simple, the habit of new projects is more vulnerable in case of fraud, which is caused by several factors intentionally or not, but in the case of old projects we rarely find fraudulent projects intentionally, but that does not mean we want to say that new projects are more likely to be fraudulent and when compared with old projects, these are just most of the examples we found in crypto