Trading alt coins is gambling, 100%. It's a game of chance. You will make just as much money at a casino as gambling on alt coins. If you want to really make money consistently, learn investing and stay away from alt coins.
Learning investing doesnt exclude alt coins. Hell, you can invest properly in altcoins. Investing is research and if you do your research well and have good market knowledge, alcoins are as good as any market to make money in. Even more in this time.
I disagree. I don't think they are a viable market. They are too illiquid and consist basically 100% of retail investors. Furthermore, they are accepted almost nowhere as a currency... or at least not by any major vendors. This means that the value investors assign to them is extremely speculative.
Basically what I'm getting it is that I don't believe any amount of research into alt coins will let you make trade decisions that consistently yield better results than random chance. The exception is the coins whose price basically just follows bitcoin, in which case you are essentially just investing in bitcoin but with more risk.
I disagree. Researching on a project of altcoin can definitely give you an almost certain amount of profit on your investment unless something crazy happens (market crash). For instant: if you know there is a big company behind an altcoin, the technology is tested (by yourself or 3rd party) and there is solid, good community behind the project (ie couple hundred people) and the buy-in of the stake is a couple of sat, it's definitely not 'random chance' that you will profit on that. Ofcourse the research isnt simple as only those three or four examples but hell, even those points make a good base for wether its a good investment or not. And lets not forget that EVERY INVESTMENT in EVERY BRANCHE has risks of not ROI/Profiting. Just like altcoins.
You didn't really address my points. The lack of liquidity makes market manipulation for alt coins extremely easy even for people who don't have a lot of money. Furthermore, I doubt the sec would do anything to prevent anyone manipulating alt coin markets.
Also, as I mentioned, they are pretty much 100% retail investors. Furthermore, it is almost entirely inexperienced retail investors. No good investors out there trade in alt coins. As a result, the price movement can be sporadic, volatile, and irrational (as in, it does not at all reflect changes in the coin's intrinsic value appropriately).
These factors that you are mentioning will affect the value of a coin, but they very well may not change the coin's value in the same way they affect its price, and this is due to the issue I described above.
Yes every investment comes with some risk, but with alt coins it is effectively 100% risk. I still do not believe anyone can do better than random chance in alt coins. If you disagree, please show me an example of somebody trading alt coins and consistently outperforming the crypto market itself for over a year.