Compilation: Plain Language Blockchain

The bull market has returned ( at least for now ).

But the question is, which altcoins are most likely to become the best-performing coins?

During the bull market in 2021, almost every random cryptocurrency experienced a surge. However, the situation has changed since then.

Millions of new altcoins have been launched, making it particularly important to choose the right coins to buy in order to make a profit.

In this article, I would like to share my cryptocurrency investment checklist and the key points I look for in projects.

1. Narrative and Market Fit and High Attention

Think about the best-performing Tokens in the past 12 months.

Some examples include HYPE, VIRTUAL, and MeMe.

Do they all have strong fundamentals? Some coins like HYPE do, but the vast majority of the top performers listed below clearly do not.

Source: Coingecko 2024 Cryptocurrency Largest Increase Article

But they have one thing in common: high social media attention and a group of enthusiastic believer communities that constantly promote these coins on the X platform.

In addition, most of the best-performing coins are associated with a strong narrative:

• VIRTUAL： The price surged as artificial intelligence (AI) narratives emerged.
• MeMe: Will surge during the hot meme trend in the fourth quarter of 2024 and the beginning of the first quarter of 2025.

My suggestion is: find the current popular narrative, and then look for tokens related to that narrative that have the most active X community.

2. Growth Metrics

Although in a bull market, attention ( is unfortunately far more important than fundamentals, the good news is that some projects have both high attention and product-market fit ) PMF (.

If you can find a project that combines both, it could be a great investment opportunity. Especially if its product metrics have shown explosive growth recently.

For example: the stablecoin protocol Ethena has seen a total locked value of ) TVL increase by 50% over the past 30 days. Meanwhile, there has also been considerable discussion about it on platform X.

What is the result? Ethena's Token $ENA has increased by 154% in the past month.

By identifying early those projects with indicators such as TVL/revenue/fee growth ( and a good level of attention on platform X, you can make a lot of money.

The main tool I use to discover the fastest-growing projects is DeFiLlama.

3. Reasonable Token Economics

If you plan to buy Tokens and hold them for only a few days, the Token economics )tokenomics( is not that important. But for medium to long-term investments, the situation is completely different.

For example, TIA has fallen by more than 90% in the past 17 months due to the significant selling pressure from early investors after each Token unlock, which has led to a price decline.

Therefore, it is very important to review the Token economics before purchasing the Token.

I will focus on the following points when researching Tokens:

• ) Tokens to be unlocked

You can use Tokenomist to check the token economics and upcoming unlocks of many popular tokens.

Generally speaking, I hope that the circulating supply accounts for at least 30% of the total supply, with an annual Token issuance of (, that is, the inflation rate of ) is at most between 20-35%.

Additionally, if there is a large-scale Token unlock ### in the near future, such as an unlock equivalent to more than 20% of the current circulating supply (, I would choose not to purchase that Token.

• ) Token Utility

I always ask myself two questions:

• Will the Token I want to buy benefit from the success of the protocol?
• Why would someone buy it at a higher price than me?

The profit-sharing mechanism or token buyback is, in my opinion, the best utility of a token.

That said, while powerful Token utility is a significant plus, it is not essential. I have seen many Tokens with almost no utility still perform very well.

4. Community-Centric Philosophy

It is more important than ever for projects to be community-centered.

More and more people are no longer willing to invest in boring, faceless brands—they want to support teams that genuinely care about the community.

This is also one of the reasons why I believe tokens like HYPE and PENGU have performed so well recently.

Several signs of a community-centered crypto project:

• Conducted a large-scale airdrop
• The team always makes low-profile commitments and over-delivers.
• Team-led marketing - The team is very active on the X platform and interacts frequently with the community.
• Most of the token supply is allocated to the community.

These are the main factors I am looking for in a Token.

Another important factor that may drive the Token price up is: the upcoming major catalysts that have not yet been priced in by the market.

This may include protocol upgrades, improvements in Token economics, or the launch of new products, all of which could significantly increase the project's revenue.

Summary

Nevertheless, keep one thing in mind: a good asset is still a bad investment if the price is not right.

Wait for the right opportunity, and do not act impulsively due to FOMO.

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