How to PROPERLY Research for your investments - Real guide from a real trader

I am getting a little tired of people throwing their money at coins purely because other people said to do so, so I've decided to make a quick resource for you all with tools allowing you to properly research your coins BEFORE, DURING & AFTER you invest.

I have been trading cryptos for 2 years, and the tools I am about to give you will be able to jump straight on my level. Because experience does not mean shit when it comes to long term investing, knowledge does. If you do the research, it does not matter if you have been trading for 1 day or 1 decade, you will make money.

Below are some techniques for you to do YOUR OWN RESEARCH and how to find the next coin you will throw your own hard earned money into. No more relying on other members, it's time to get your head in the info and start actually LEARNING about your investments.

I. BitcoinTalk
I can not stress enough how useful bitcointalk is. The Altcoin Announcements board provides you endless investment opportunities, if you are looking for new investment opportunities and getting into high-potential coins, this is the number one place to do so.
Optimal way to use bitcointalk:

• Auto-Refresh: Get an auto-refresh extension for your browser and set it to every 5 minutes for the altcoin announcements board, this will automatically refresh the page for you to check on when you feel like it, allowing you to see new coins literally AS SOON as they are announced.
• Read the posts: Yes, read the posts. When I say use bitcointalk, I mean look at the feedback, not just the thread OP (because obviously they are trying to sell their coin to you, they won't tell you the pros and cons, the feedback will). -
• Subscribe to threads: Subscribe to threads that you are invested into, or are keeping an eye on for the future. This is the best (and only way) to keep track of where your money is and where your money could be.

II. Slack Channels
The second best topping bitcointalk is SLACK. Slack is kind of like discord, for web developers and businesses to communicate with their teams. By being an investor, you are apart of the team. Most coins, such as stratis, siacoin etc have slacks where core devs will hangout, provide updates, big upcoming news and so forth. They literally SPOON FEED you the information you need for your information as well as other investors willing to share their views and interests.
How do you find slack channels?
Usually they are in the Bitcointalk ANN of the coin you are researching, if you can't find it look around on google. Not all coins will have this, but the coins in which do and have a active developer team are ones you should take a good note of.

III. Google is your best friend
People really under rate google. I saw people here promoting scam tokens here once (I can't remember what they were called) and there were users literally saying "this looks good I might buy some" when a simple google search showed you huge amounts of news threads stating it was a scam.
Before you invest, look for news. Google "xcoin news" and set the search tool for the last week or month. Read as much as you can find and note the pros and cons. Once you have a big list of pros and cons, decide whether you think it's worth it for short term, long term, or not at all.

IV. Stop listening to other LQ users.
I mean this one and I mean it with a passion. Many people see a thread saying "I just dropped $1k in DumbCoin" and $20k worth of people will follow. It doesn't matter if X, a MOD or an ADMIN with flawless rep posted, You do not invest in anything just because someone said so, you go ahead and research yourself and YOU make that decision. Like I said in my intro, there are guides out there teaching people how to pump coins and Stop assisting artificial value for coins.

If you follow the people you'll be identified as a sheep.
Big money makers try to understand where the sheep movement is going and they anticipate.

V. Social media
Setup a twitter account and follow ONLY the coins you are invested/plan on investing in. This will allow you to login every day & see what's good with each one of your investments, and kick you off onto other avenues of information for the day.

The truth is that it doesn't matter if you have $10, $100, or $1,000,000...The REAL value comes from KNOWLEDGE. Benjamin Franklin told us himself:
Quote:
An investment in knowledge pays the best interest

And if you want to argue with Ben Franklin, then you be my guest.

I hope you all learn something from this thread, that you start making wiser decisions with your money and most of all, hit the green.

Good luck!

:: It took over an hour to compile, and organize this information, it takes 5 seconds to press UPVOTE ::