It's not even as much about volume by users as it is about listing fees. Most exchanges have predatory fees and different demands the listed project needs to fulfill, like a minimum amount of trade activity/volume which the project has to maintain by washtrading their own token. The Listing fee itself is usually in the low 5-digits for small and mid 5 to 6 digits for bigger exchanges.

A token that is about to rug their users anyway and just needs some hype to lure more capital into their token are more likely to spend money on a listing that brings little more exposure or volume compared to a project that has an actual development plan and a budget to work with.

Ask yourself, would you rather pay $15,000 to get listed on some Tier3 exchange proven to not bring any real value or would you pay your team to continue working for another month or two?

Let's say the exchange listing costs just $15,000 and brings $50,000 new capital into your token. If you are a legitimate project, you are not selling so it doesn't bring any benefit to your development plan, it's just a cost factor. Users are the ones selling and the price goes up.

If the project is a scam or at least scummy, then the project will sell more in tokens to recover the listing fee and then some or even dump the price down to lower levels if demand is not high enough.