Beginner's Guide to CryptoCurrency: White Papers, Road Maps and Project Teams

If you are just tuning in and consider yourself a Beginner in the Crypto World, I highly recommend the previous segment in which we discuss Crypto Exchanges and how to choose the ones that work best for you: https://steemit.com/crypto/@ridge-sin/beginner-s-guide-to-cryptocurrency-crypto-exchanges

In this segment, we are going to go over some ways you can better identify which Companies/Projects and their respective Tokens you would like to Invest in.

Unlike much of the Stock Market, many Crypto Currencies are still in their infantile stages. This essentially means there's rarely any preexisting reputation or well-known product to help judge the Crypto Currency by.
This leaves us with just a few key elements by which we can better get to know these companies before Investing in their Tokens: The White Paper, The Road Map, and the Project Team.

A White Paper describes the theory behind a team's new Project and the Token that supports it, often including the problem that the Project is aiming to fix. In other words, the White Paper is like the Project's first impression, which is massively important. Even if a product might solve a massive problem, very few will look past a poorly written White Paper.
Below are Bitcoin and Ethereum's White Papers, and I highly recommend reading them to anyone looking to get into the Crypto Trade.
https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-paper
https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/White-Paper

A Road Map is a public overview of the Project's predicted timeline for completing it's goals and deliverables, often described in the White Paper. There are some rare cases when a Project refuses to produce a Road Map, declaring that they are prioritizing a quality Product over setting sort of a Time-Limit for themselves. This makes assessing the Project much more difficult, as it is common to judge a Project's credibility by how well the Project Team can keep to the timeline predicted on their Road Map.

The Project Team, unlike the Project itself, often has a reputation that is worth looking into. This is a fantastic resource, as it allows you to identify how much promise and experience the Project Team has for actually accomplishing their goals. However it's important to note that the Project Team goes much further than just the Blockchain Developers, as each part of the team, such as the Project's PR Team, are sometimes equally as important to the Project's success.

However as the Crypto Currency Market grows with time, there is an additional and much more basic element that we can look for: A Working Product.
Many young Projects have the launch of a Working Product predicted on their Road Maps for 2018, and how these Products perform will likely be reflected by the respective Project's Token.

As you can see, many of these resources are simple, yet crucial. Using each of them will allow you to better navigate the Crypto Currency Market and identify for yourself which of the multitude of Coins/Tokens have the most promise for future success!

If you enjoyed this segment of my Beginner's Guide to CryptoCurrency, tune in for the next segment where we discuss how to measure the health of a coin/token itself more so than the Company behind it!