It's always hard to find gem, but every year gives us lots of them.
Everybody are talking about BTC ride, about ETH ride, etc, but 2020 was also great for DeFi projects. Just look at price of YFI at the beginning, and look on ATH. UNI/LINK/RUNE. These coins gave possibility to earn some money. Previous year was also nice for Theta and Tfuel and GRT (Ico price about $0.03, first days on Binance and it hit almost $0.80).
But was it really easy to find them? Of course no. You need to dig in forums/YT/reddit/github/4chan, wherever you want to get info about projects. You can be lucky guy, and make big money with almost no research, but as long as you spend some time on gathering info you will feel more conifident on this market. And that one is really brutal. Now everything is green and everybody are happy, but just look at historical snapshots on coinmarketcap. Lots of project which were on TOP100 are dead. My friends lost really big money on 2017 bubble, do not be like them
Going back to topic. How to find gem on 2021? First of all, projects with really strong community. If community is big and hyped even project with some lacks are able to pump very hard. Best way to look at the communities? Twitter/Reddit/4Chan and some guys on YT, listen what they say, read comments.
Second usability. I wouldn't go into any project without any use cases, without clear roadmap, and without any history. Remember 'bout it. Maybe it is not hidden gem, i do not now yet, but check LTO Network. Lately about top200, still small marketcap, interesting use cases on their website, and they already work with Dutch&Belgium governments. Read their blog, whitepaper and roadmap. Maybe it is not perfect, but as for smaller mcap than top100 it looks very nice.
Third one, but as i think it should be the first one- strategy. Whithout any strategy do not put any money on this market. You need to have clear strategy. What if your coin go 20x? Would you be waiting for x100 or you would like to secure your profits. How to secure them? Would you like to get USD stable coins or you'd like to invest profits on BTC or ETH?
Think about loses too. I've put some money lately into a project which went down from 3.8$ to 1.98$ without any reason. Sold some of that coins, put into different project and i'm almost on 0. It doesn't bother me, because i have different coins at my portfolio which get my net worth up.
Man be careful on this market and have a good luck!!