All forms of investment will definitely be at risk, as you experienced in the past, but unfortunately you stop and just want to continue again.
maybe your $ 1K capital, you can invest in new altcoins that may already have a market, but again need deep observation and patience, no need to panic too fast when prices go down, wait and always pay attention to the developments you invest, because the market will always grow, that is the belief you must have.
I think instead of investing in new coin better to invest in some promising and well trusted coin, It is good time to invest your 1000 dollar because coins according to me are at good and affordably coin now a day is bitcoin and ETH, so it is time to take wise decision and buy only bitcoin it has good potential I am sure it will make your money get higher in timely manner, just buy and hold.
The problem with the "promising and well trusted coins" is that they can fall hard if anything changes for the worse. Or even if nothing bad happens to the coin itself, a new project might contest them and do the same things in a better way, resulting in people living the "old and trusted coin" for the newer and arguably better one.
If you invest in middle-valued coins, the chances of going up or down will be about the same but you stand to win more on the way up.
For example Ethereum is already very high, I don't expect it to go 10x times up.
On the other hand, ARK is very cheap and it's utilities could be used to replace Ethereum in the future. It can go 100x times up and still be half of Ethereum's value.