In this bull market, altcoins have collectively stalled, but the fault doesn’t lie with the market itself. The real issue? Exchanges and project teams collude to hype up valuations, treating retail investors like fodder. But don’t panic—there are at least 10 good years left in the crypto space.

What’s the biggest trap for retail investors? Blindly chasing hot trends. Most of those slick narratives are just smokescreens. When it comes to picking coins, there are really only two hard criteria: is the technology barrier high enough, and is the brand influence strong enough?

Let’s talk about technology first. The complexity of a public chain is basically on par with database systems. The engineering difficulty of ETH is roughly between Oracle and PostgreSQL. Oracle’s market cap is $500 billion, ETH’s is over $200 billion, so this valuation logic makes sense. So if you’re going to pick, choose chains with strong technical barriers that can also tell a new story—$NEAR is a prime example.

The other path is to play the influence game. Coins like $DOGE and $TRUMP are essentially brand assets. In an age of information overload, attention is the scarcest resource. After AI accelerates content overload, brands that capture mindshare will become even more valuable.

To put it simply—when it comes to altcoins, either pick public chains with tech that can compare to ETH and have enough narrative potential, or pick coins with enough influence to become brands. Anything else? Retail investors are better off staying away. Other metrics like TVL and profit figures are too easy to fake.