Marketcap is the most important factor when determining if a coin can go 10 to 100x. Not because the coin necessarily is a good store of value, but because the current market has shown what level of market cap it is willing to tolerate. We are still in the wild west days of the cryptocoin market. There is unfortunately less importance put on future promise than immediate returns. Just look at the number of coins that are fake at face value (looking at you picklericks) and tell me that low marketcap is not the primary means of determining "moons".
tl:dr - Low marketcap is directly linked to the probability of huge gains, but hopefully that won't always be the case.
While there are a few exceptions, you have to start with a
good coin. There many junk or so called shitcoins investors shouldn't touch even at a super "bargain".
Taking your generalized advise may lead so really major loses.
I probably wasn't clear enough. I was insinuating that looking for the next "moon" is the wrong way to go about investing in crypto-currency. If you are looking for short term returns you should invest in shitcoins because they are heavily dependent on hotair and bs. You can make a huge return or you could lose all your money because they were always a scam. My point is you should do research and not look at the cryptocurrency market as a gambling ring. Eventually, hopefully, there will only be a dozen or so coins which all serve a very specific purpose and are great stores of value. If you find one of those coins now the sky is the limit, but I can tell you that picklericks and monkey project coins will not be one of them.