I have been keeping an eye on different projects and how exchanges make or break a coin.
And here's what i realized.
1- A lot of projects with absolutely no value end up on coin market cap, simply because of good exchanges listing them.
2- A lot of projects, fail and have to just exit and cancel because they fail to list on good exchanges.
thus, it's the exchanges that decide, which coins will become valuable and which won't, irrelevant on whether projects are good or bad, or even outright scams!
It's not always the founders fault, I personally find it the exchanges fault.
Listing a token on a semi-descent exchange costs around 2 btc
listing on good exchange cost 10-100 times that.
Exchanges make big money on trade, but also on listings.
Most communities are not willing to use decentralized, because too complicated.
Thus projects fail in ICO , because investors have too much doubts now,
Then they fail in listing on decent exchanges because it costs money they can't afford
Then they fail to get marketcap because on dex not much happens.