Every time I see a project drop a GitHub link plus an audit report, my hands get a bit itchy—I want to click in and flip through it... Psychologically, I guess I’m looking for that feeling of “since other people have also looked at it, I can feel at ease,” basically borrowing authority to reassure myself.

But if a beginner really wants to judge credibility, I think it’s better not to fixate first on how deep or complex the code is. Instead, look at three small things: whether the repository is alive (is there ongoing development and are issues getting responses), whether the audit “matches the version” (whether the audit’s commit is really the same set as what’s running now), and who holds the upgrade multi-signature keys (how many people, what the threshold is, and whether they can change the rules with a single click). Especially recently, the staking/sharing security has been criticized as “matryoshka,” and even if the stacked returns look good, if the upgrade keys are too centralized, I actually get even more on edge... In any case, I’d rather accept slightly lower returns for now, and figure out first who can move the steering wheel.