There are different styles of investors and I'm not saying one style is more benefical than another, since there are different factors which influence the final profit made. Sometimes a hyped coin can generate more profit on the short run for a lucky investor than an useful coin can generate along several years of solidity and trustfulness.
For my taste, utility is more adviced than hype, because I like to focus on long term investment goals. It's a safer approach when investing, without relying in speculative whales to also achieve your goal. An useful coin or asset will survive along the year, while a hyped coin will only give you some profit on short run (if you are lucky to buy and sell in time) and die right after.
It depends on your priority here. If you want easy profit, you can venture the hyped up projects. But it is very risky as you don't know when will be the right time to enter and exit. If in case, you get involved with possible pump and dump coin, better get out while you are still in positive. Because if you will wait too long, you may end up holding worthless coins or tokens. This is the problem with hype coins, you can never be sure of their existence. Whereas, if you are investing in a utility coin, you can follow their progress and you will know if there will be no more developments as you can see it from their social media channels. And you can decide, whether keep on holding or just sell it and move on to the next project.
The problem is that there isn't a sure way to know when it's the right time to jump in and jump out and that is why I prefer coins which bring an utility purpose, as they are going to last on long run, so I don't have to worry myself about the coin's price going from ATH to zero in few minutes, hours or days.
Talking about risks intensity, there isn't actually too much difference between a HYIP and a hyped altcoin. If you choose this investment option, all you can expect is to be lucky enough to be on the right place, at the right time in order to achieve profit and avoid loss. People following this strategy blindly are likely to face losses on long run... Speculative altcoins might be an interesting idea, but just for a tiny percentage of an investor's total bankroll.