Just witnessed another one. Project team locked liquidity on the DEX and collected payments, but then simply vanished. Classic move.

Why do this play still happen so often? Because the barrier to entry is too low. Anyone can deploy a token, flash some promises, collect funds through legitimate-looking mechanisms—locked liquidity looks credible on paper—and then ghost. The DEX infrastructure supports all of it technically. No gatekeeping.

The locked tokens and completed payments create an illusion of legitimacy. But legitimacy requires more than mechanics. It requires accountability, which decentralized systems struggle to enforce. That's the gap these operators exploit.

Not every project with locked liquidity is malicious, of course. But the pattern is worth noting if you're evaluating DeFi opportunities.