Altcoin research can be hard depending on your budget. If you can afford to buy the more expensive altcoins like Ethereum, Litecoin and others that is typically a safer long term bet. I've made some mistakes researching and investing into weak projects, but I have learned some things and I definitely want to be in stronger projects now and in the future. Here are some important topics to think about before you jump into an altcoin at a good price.
Trade volume. Trade volume is probably the most important factor when choosing an altcoin or any type of investment in general. If the trade volume of the coin is not high enough then there is the potential that price of the coin pumps significantly but no one is interested in buying it. I have been in crypto since early 2017, so I have seen numerous projects fail due to low trade volume. Once some of these projects with $10,000 trade volume or so get de-listed from the exchanges, it is up to the team behind the project to usually pay the re-listing fee out of their own pockets. By this point the team is either discouraged and unmotivated to re-list the project or they have run out of money in order to pay the sometimes expensive listing fees. I have been looking at trade volume of several projects and a trade volume of less than $100k is a high-risk investment in my opinion. Some traders will say that anything less than $1 million in 24 hour trade volume is too big of a risk, so this is a personal preference, but generally speaking higher trade volume projects are lower risk because it will be easier to sell your altcoin holdings even at a loss.
Total Supply. I'm not sure that total supply is the most important factor when buying a cryptocurrency, but it is still an important part when researching a good investment. If the total supply is very low like 1 million or less, then there is a chance with these altcoins that no one will want to buy 10 or 20 of a coin that has questionable value. On the other hand if the supply is huge like 1 trillion total supply, then it will probably be unattractive to outside investors because even if an investor buys 1 million coins it will probably have a very small impact on the price of the coin. Bigger supply coins are necessary depending on the use cases imo, but BTC also has a relatively small supply and is being used on a daily basis.
Team/Active social media presence. The team must be strong, and it is a good sign if they are willing to share their full names, work history, linked in profiles, etc. in order to build more trust. I do respect people's privacy though, so if they can provide compelling evidence to be trusted without revealing their real identities, then it is important to respect that as well. I usually check Twitter to see if a project is still being active and providing updates about their project. If I see a completely dead Twitter account, then my first assumption is to move on and find another project to research. I often find projects in this space faking Twitter/social media activity by providing simple 5 second updates that can be extremely repetitive. Ex. Stox coin Twitter. They frequently just post similar things over and over again for the past several months. Scroll through their Twitter account for the last few months, and you will probably be able to see what I mean. Other projects like Storiqa it looks like their last post on Twitter was sometime in March, so it doesn't make me feel as confident when investing into that project.
Strong Tech/Use Cases. This is a hard one to answer. The actual tech and use cases is one of the most important reasons to hold onto a project, but it is not very important if the other criteria including acceptable trade volume, reasonable total supply, and an active social media presence are not met. The tech and use cases are extremely important including the security of the coin, but it is hard to learn or care about the tech behind the coin unless there is big news/updates being released in their Twitter account, Telegram account, Discord, etc. I recently wrote about Abyss as a project to watch because I still believe it is an undervalued project, and even though the price has fallen I believe it is a strong project which will probably recover because they are continuing to build their gaming marketplace and add high quality games while keeping an active social media presence.
Charts. Projections. I tend to think long-term when investing so charts is not the first thing I look at, but I have learned that the charts sometimes tell a pretty interesting story. If you know how to read a chart the right way you might be able to predict the next BTC pump or altcoin rally. Check out trading view for a bunch of different opinions on BTC and altcoin info. https://www.tradingview.com/
Fair Price. Jumping into an altcoin at the right price or a good price is a tough decision to make. One rule I live by when trading for altcoins is that it is better to get into a good project at a bad price, then a bad project at a great price. This is something Warren Buffet usually says when he invests into stocks. Timing the right price of a coin is a combination of what you know about the project, the historical price chart, upcoming updates or announcements for the altcoin, and several other factors including staking rewards, token burning, total supply vs. maximum supply, and more. Buying at the right price for an altcoin is one of the most difficult things to do because crypto has so much volatilty.
This is not a comprehensive checklist for researching altcoins and I'm far from an expert crypto trader, but these are some useful tips and tricks that you need to look for when researching coins. New projects won't fit into all of these categories, but projects that have been around for at least 6 months should probably fit into all these categories or you should move on. This is not financial advice and please do your own research. Hopefully this helps with your altcoin research.