How I stopped buying random shitcoins and started making better decisions

Used to just buy whatever was trending on Twitter or what some YouTuber shilled. Lost probably $2k doing this before I figured out I needed an actual strategy.

Not gonna pretend I'm some expert, but here's what helped me make better choices:

**Look at the actual use case**

Does this crypto solve a real problem? Or is it just "fast transactions" with no users? I started asking "would anyone actually use this in 5 years?" Most coins failed that test.

**Check who's building it**

Anonymous team = red flag for me now. Doesn't mean it's a scam but I want to see real people with track records. Check their GitHub - are they actually coding or just marketing?

**Market cap matters more than price**

Took me way too long to understand this. A $0.001 coin isn't "cheap" if it has 100 billion supply. I look at market cap and compare it to similar projects. Is this realistic or am I hoping for a 1000x that'll never happen?

**Don't chase pumps**

Hardest lesson. If something's up 200% in a week, I'm probably late. FOMO killed me so many times. Now I try to buy things before they pump, not after.

**Read the whitepaper (or at least try)**

Yeah it's boring but you can usually tell in 5 minutes if it's serious or just buzzwords. If I can't understand what they're building after reading it, probably not worth my money.

**Community matters**

Active Discord/Telegram with real discussions vs just "wen moon" spam tells you a lot. I also check Reddit - are people actually talking about the tech or just price?

I'm still learning and definitely make mistakes, but this approach has worked way better than random YOLO buys.

What's your process for choosing coins? Any tips I'm missing?