No FUD from me, just the truth. Verium 1.0.4 was released 16th Sept 2016, over 1 year ago. Devs promised new mining code back in March
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1540023.msg18064428#msg18064428
I expect they have kept it for themselves to mine faster than everyone else.

Doesn't Bittrex require constant dev progress in order not to be delisted?

Have devs abandoned this coin? No software updates for over a year, not good. Always promises, in reality nothing happens. Just beware, could be delisted.