Here is how I would suggest "feeling it out", if you are more technically inclined. Once you think you might want to buy some of a coin buy doing the above, fir

Here is how I would suggest "feeling it out", if you are more technically inclined. Once you think you might want to buy some of a coin buy doing the above, first read a coin's whitepaper to give you a good idea of how it works and if it is just a scam. Then google around for other technical blog posts explaining how that other person, who hopefully has been using it, thinks how it works. Finally set up a node on your home machine (for bitcoin you need to download a ~165 GB blockchain, which is huge, but others are in the few GB to 100 MB range) so you can work with it directly. Then make some small transactions so you know how to do it before you make any large ones. If transacting goes easy with small fees and there are lots of sites using the coin, maybe it has a future.