For me still the best altcoin in 2016 is Litecoin(LTC), Ethereum(ETH), it is because these two altcoins they both established big community in bitcoin world/cryptoworld and many of the investors also believe in these two that's they continue to buy and used it.
A big community is alright, but nearly all of them will flee like rats when the ship sinks, there is simply no real countervalue behind it all, especially LTC is doomed when the first little bug is found or some high-roller starts playing around with the market.
Well i think it is part of risk investment that is why always making investment with can be lost them, and always there are risk on all of instrument of investments not on digital currencies only.