How to Research a Crypto Project in Thirty Minutes

By Gurjeet Singh, developer of CoinPriceAlert · Published 24 August 2026 · 3 min read

Start with supply, because it is decisive and quick

Check circulating supply against total supply. If a small fraction is circulating, large scheduled unlocks are coming and every current holder is buying ahead of guaranteed future selling. Check the unlock schedule — it is usually published, and it explains a great deal of otherwise mysterious underperformance.

Then check holder concentration on a block explorer. If a handful of addresses hold most of the supply, the price is at the discretion of a few people regardless of what anyone else believes. Both checks take five minutes and regularly end the research right there.

Then look for evidence of actual use

Transaction counts and active addresses tell you whether anyone is using the thing, and whether that usage survives when incentive programmes taper. Usage that collapses the moment rewards stop was never usage; it was farming.

Developer activity is the other genuine signal. A public repository with steady commits from multiple contributors is meaningfully different from one that stopped eighteen months ago while marketing continued.

Finally, read the project's own words critically

Read the documentation, not the marketing site. What does it actually claim to do, and does that require the token, or has a token been attached to a product that would work without one? The latter is extremely common.

Then look for the argument against it. Search for criticism specifically. If you cannot find any considered objection to a project, you have not looked — and going in without knowing the strongest case against your position is the definition of an unexamined bet.

The mistakes that cost the most

Treating every notification as requiring a response. An alert is information, not an instruction, and most of them should end with you doing nothing.

Reacting to a move without checking what caused it. A fall that happens while the whole market falls is a different event from a fall that happens alone, and the correct response differs completely. Checking correlation first takes ten seconds and prevents most panic decisions.

Changing the plan mid-move. The level you chose while calm is better than the one you will choose while watching a candle. If you find yourself widening a stop or moving a target during volatility, that is the moment to close the app rather than the moment to act.

Never reviewing. Most people set up project due diligence once and never look at whether it worked. A short monthly review — what fired, what you did, what you would change — compounds faster than any refinement of the setup itself.

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