Popular project or non popular project both investment is risky. When investing in cryptocurrency, no one can guarantee you that your money will be safe there. Because investing in cryptocurrency is always risky, you must accept it. And even if you invest your money in the most popular Bitcoin, your money will still be at a risk.
The risk with buying bitcoin at a low price is much lower than buying bitcoin at high price or buying altcoins.
Most "projects" are recycled ideas for altcoins and they are based around hype which is going to crash in a few days after launch or never launch at all. These are a type of gambling and are never recommended to a trader who plays it safe. There comes the risk vs reward thing, which is marking such projects with a high risk and high reward label and bitcoin at low price as a low risk low reward label.
One can buy bitcoin at different price levels and sell at a profit to get maximum gains but investing in such altcoins rarely ends up giving profits to its investors rather only to its owners who dump and run away.