Couldn't developers pre-mine a large number of coins for themselves before the cryptocurrency is made available to the public. They might also include hidden inflation mechanisms to create new coins for themselves secretly.
And couldn't developers intentionally introduce backdoors or vulnerabilities in the code that allow them to manipulate the blockchain, steal funds, or reverse transactions.
And couldn't developers create a cryptocurrency designed to appear decentralized but actually be controlled by a small group of nodes operated by the developers.
Just curious.
Sure they could do that......but it would appear in the blockchain and be visible to everyone. Everyone could see this was just a scam currency that was not decentralized and which could be manipulated by the founders. And they could see that it had backdoors or other such flaws. The Blockchain is on the internet and is visible to everyone. That's the beauty of open ledger.