When I landed on coinmarketcap hoping to pick a coin to invest, it was not an easy thing.
Many scam coins, premined coins, dead coins, coins created for fun, coins on death bed, pure diamonds, and then bitcoin.
I bought some Dogecoins and it taught me how to use a wallet, trade, send, receive, addresses and things one needs to know to use cryptos. I still hold some.
This is what I do to select a coin to invest. This is not a professional advice. If anyone reading this can add suggestions, it will be good for all of us.
Go to coinmarketcap and now scan the list of coins. Does the name of the coin tell you that they created it for fun? Like TTC ( . )( . ) Save some time and skip them.
A star next to the circulating number of coins? That means it can not be mined using a device. Well there are many coins that are genuine and cannot be mined but I avoid these non-minable coins. I will buy such coins only after a thorough research. We are looking for quick picks here.
Now the maximum number of coins and the current value. It is good to have these two low. Now I normally add the coin to the short list for further research.
Go to the social tab of coinmarketcap. Look at the tweets and activity from people behind the coin. Are they active? Are they sharing relevant content? Or just images of a rocket going to the moon? How many people are talking about it in the reddit feed? Is there activity?
Now I go to the market tab. How many exchanges are currently trading the coin? Normally it takes a while for the coin to get listed in an exchange but if the coin network is old and the number of exchanges is low, then we can drop the coin. Or if I can find that the developers (devs) are active, maybe I can still pick it.
Take a look at the chart. Is the value staying low for a long time? Had it been subject to one or more pump and dumps? If the price is way lower than the all time high (ATH), this may be good. But make sure that the coin is not a dead coin with any active development. Check if I can find something about this coin in the news.
Everything looks pretty neat so far for the selected coin? Now I go and visit their website and read stuff. What are their plans for this coin?
These are the preliminary steps of the filtering process I use. This should not be taken as an investment guide. I have not mentioned any secrets here - just normal things. But these may not be obvious to a newcomer to the crypto scene. As always invest only what you can afford to lose. If trading veterans can add more useful tips in the comments, we can all benefit. Thank you all for reading..