Basically approach everything like it's a scam, and only start to trust them if they prove to be otherwise, there is nothing wrong with that. I mean if you start thinking "this is a scam project" at the very start, that means they will work hard to prove to you they are not, and they will not do it personally to you like you are the only investor, so you just check what they do and what they provide, and that will be fine.
Look at pinksale, between audit, kyc, safu and many other stuff, they end up getting the projects to be a lot bigger and so forth. This means that if they keep working towards that, you get to see what they are working on, and then you can decide if they are actually good or not, and that will help you out a lot.
I have seen quite alot of scam projects fail that right now, any site or crypto project without proper contact details/information in any form or without a responsive customer care representative identifies as a scam project to me.
Even those projects that want to gain customer trust by being up and doing won't be able to fake their intentions after 5years, that's if they aren't figured out before this sited duration expire. This is also why government is trying so hard to get involved in the decentralized game, and monitor certain of its activity, so as to keep a tight lid on the project inorder to protect its citizens funds and data, which the customers present when signing up for these crypto projects.