As a general rule of thumb, you also need to consider the community around the coin, especially the founder and lead developers. Excitement is easy to generate, but how active and genuine is the energy around this coin? While use case is number one, a genuinely active community of talented developers is always a good sign in my book.

I also like to ask things like -- would I consider staking that coin by setting up a node or dedicating some resources to pooling? is it mineable? am I likely to remain interested for a reason other than simply the possibility of making money?