The bull market is back (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 coin was skyrocketing. However, things have changed since then.

With millions of new altcoins being launched, it has become particularly important to choose which coins to buy in order to make money.

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

1. Fit and high attention of the narrative to the market

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 top performers listed below clearly do not.

Source: Coingecko's article on the biggest cryptocurrency price increases in 2024

But they have one thing in common: high social media attention and a group of passionate believers who constantly promote these coins on platform X.

Moreover, most of the best-performing coins are related to a strong narrative:

  • VIRTUAL: Price skyrocketed during the rise of the AI narrative

  • MeMe: Soaring in late Q4 2024 and early Q1 2025 during the meme trend

My advice is: find the narratives that are currently popular, then look for Tokens related to that narrative that have the most active community on platform X.

2. Growing metrics

While attention (unfortunately) matters much more than fundamentals during a bull market, the good news is that some projects have both high attention and product-market fit (PMF).

If you can find projects that have both, it could be a great investment opportunity, especially if their product metrics have recently shown explosive growth.

For example: the stablecoin protocol Ethena has seen a 50% increase in total locked value (TVL) over the past 30 days. At the same time, there has been considerable discussion about it on platform X.

And what happened? Ethena's Token $ENA rose 154% in the past month.


By identifying projects that show early signs of growth (like TVL/revenue/fee growth) and have good 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 a Token and hold it for only a few days, Token economics (tokenomics) is not that important. But for medium to long-term investments, the situation is completely different.

For example, TIA has fallen over 90% in the past 17 months because the massive sell-off pressure from early investors after each Token unlock led to price declines.

Therefore, reviewing the Token economics before purchasing is very important.

When researching Tokens, I focus on the following points:

Upcoming Token unlocks

You can use Tokenomist to check the tokenomics and upcoming unlocks of many popular Tokens.

In general, I hope that the circulating supply accounts for at least 30% of the total supply, and the annual Token issuance (i.e., inflation rate) is at most between 20-35%.

Additionally, if there is a large-scale Token unlocking in the near future (for example, unlocking 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 I would?

Revenue-sharing mechanisms or Token buybacks are what I believe are the best Token utilities.

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

4. Community-centered philosophy

It is more important than ever whether a project is community-centered.

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

This is also one of the reasons I think Tokens like HYPE and PENGU have performed so well recently.

Several signs of a community-centered crypto project:

  • Conducted large-scale airdrops

  • The team consistently delivers more than promised while maintaining a low profile

  • Team-led marketing—The team is very active on platform X and frequently interacts with the community

  • The majority of Token supply is allocated to the community

  • These are the main factors I look for in a Token.

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

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

Summary

Nonetheless, 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.