Recently, I’ve been looking into the cryptocurrency market and noticed that everyone keeps asking the same question: which coins should you invest in? I put together some thoughts, and I hope they can help you.

To be honest, the cryptocurrency market is full of options, but what’s truly worth your attention are those projects that rank high by market capitalization. Why? Because they’re well-known, have high trading volume, good liquidity, and relatively controllable risk. I reviewed the latest data: Bitcoin’s market cap is about $1.56 trillion, accounting for 42.54% of the entire market; Ethereum is about $26.267 billion, with a market share of 7.15%. The positions of these two coins are indeed unshakable.

There’s a saying in the market right now: “In a bull market, buy altcoins; in a bear market, buy mainstream coins.” I think this saying is genuinely reasonable. During a bull market, altcoins do surge fast, but the risk is also high. In a bear market, mainstream coins tend to hold up better, and the chance of them going to zero is smaller. So before investing in any cryptocurrency, you should first check what the overall market trend looks like—this is the top priority.

Bitcoin is the king of cryptocurrencies. It was created earliest, with a fixed total supply of only 21 million coins. It undergoes a halving every four years. This deflationary mechanism makes it scarce and valuable. Since the SEC approved spot ETFs in 2024, inflows of institutional capital have increased noticeably. While Ethereum’s market cap is lower than Bitcoin’s, its smart contract capabilities allow developers to create all kinds of applications—that’s where its value lies. Ethereum’s TVL (Total Value Locked) reaches $93.1 billion, ranking first among all public chains.

Recently, AI concepts have been very popular, and the TAO coin emerged because of this trend. The Bittensor network behind it wants to build a peer-to-peer machine learning services marketplace, and its design also references Bitcoin’s fixed supply of 21 million coins. Ripple coins are supported by Ripple, and it has a strong relationship with global financial institutions. Its transaction speed reaches 1,500 to 3,400 transactions per second—far higher than Bitcoin’s 7 transactions per second—which makes it especially attractive to institutional users.

Solana is known as the “Ethereum killer,” and its performance really is impressive. Its transaction speed can reach 3,000 to 4,000 transactions per second, and the average transaction fee is only $0.00025, offering outstanding cost-effectiveness. Dogecoin is supported by Elon Musk, and every time he posts, it can cause price fluctuations. Chainlink connects blockchain with real-world data and has important infrastructure attributes; unlike so-called “air coins,” it has no real use cases.

As for investment strategy, my recommendation is that both short-term and long-term trading are suitable for cryptocurrencies ranked in the top ten by market capitalization—the key is to combine the current market conditions and choose the appropriate strategy. For beginners, long-term investing is simpler: you only need to understand basic buy and sell operations and be aware of how to judge the market capitalization levels of cryptocurrencies. Short-term trading requires an independent trading strategy, the ability to manage positions, and strong psychological resilience, which is not friendly for beginners.

In theory, short-term trading may yield higher returns, but in practice, most people end up losing money because their predictions aren’t accurate or their execution is weak. They keep buying high and selling low, resulting in continuous losses. Long-term investing advocates holding for the long run. You won’t miss out on market moves, and it can effectively lock in profits from upward trends. I remember that in 2018, I bought a few around $5,000 for Bitcoin and sold when it reached $7,000. Later, it rose to $12,000, and I regretted it terribly. But the 312 event gave me a second chance—that’s the advantage of long-term investing.

When recommending cryptocurrencies, pay attention to this: stablecoins like USDT and USDC are pegged 1:1 to the US dollar, with particularly small volatility. They’re mainly used to store value, and it’s difficult to earn substantial returns from them. What’s truly worth investing in are non-stablecoins such as BTC, ETH, TAO, XRP, SOL, DOGE, and others. They tend to show solid gains in every bull market.

The usual way to buy cryptocurrencies is to first register on an exchange, complete real-name verification, and link a payment method. Then you buy stablecoins through fiat currency trading, and finally do crypto-to-crypto trading. If you find it too troublesome, you can also trade OTC, but you must find someone reliable—preferably face-to-face.

Long-term holding of cryptocurrencies doesn’t require constantly watching the market, which saves time and transaction fees. But in reality, it’s hard to stick with this because rising prices tempt you to sell to lock in profits, while falling prices also tempt you to sell to reduce losses. My advice is to set clear trading goals, use both long- and short-term strategies, and keep funds on different platforms. You can even transfer long-term assets to a cold wallet for physical separation.

If you’re a conservative investor, focusing only on BTC and ETH is enough. If you’re a growth-oriented investor who’s good at trading, you can add other mainstream coins like DOGE, ADA, and SOL. But don’t let altcoins with lots of zeros after the decimal point fool you into thinking you can get rich just because they rise to a dime. The reality is that these coins either go to zero or are on the road to zero.

Overall, the cryptocurrency market changes at any time, and market capitalization rankings will also shift. What we need to do is choose the right cryptocurrencies based on our own trading goals, while also protecting the security of our accounts and wallets. No matter which cryptocurrencies you invest in, don’t make common mistakes like having unclear goals, not understanding stop-loss, or holding “trash coins” long-term—otherwise, you’ll just keep losing money.