How to research Cryptocurrency or ICO

Things to look for:

1) Team: This is the first and most important thing to look for before you invest in any project. Check that who is involved in the project you are investing in it. What's the technical, business and marketing background of their team members! What are their past achievements! etc.

2) Project: Look into what are the problems they are trying to solve. Look for who are their competitors.

3) How quickly mainstream will adopt this technology: Sometimes project is good but it takes way more time for the mainstream to adoption. Or there are/will no users of that product for a long time. Sometimes it's hard to compete with existing companies in the same space.

4) Market cap: Lower market cap has good potential to grow further (same time risky) whereas larger market cap will grow slowly (less risky). But, again it's not that important factor as long as you are considering top 3 points.

5) Technical analysis before getting an entry: Technical and chart analysis is necessary before you getting into because you want to save yourself from speculative investment. Don't invest in any digital assets when it's all-time high. The reason behind this is, cryptocurrency market as of now is very tiny and most supply controlled by few people. Price can be easily manipulated by big whales.

6) Right valuation of the current price: This is the hardest thing to evaluate. But, if you are doing enough research in top 5 points that I mentioned earlier you will be able to figure out this one by yourself.

7) POS vs POW: Lots of projects are implementing a proof of stake, master nodes or secure nodes. Investing in these projects right now will give you a good chance to generate passive income in future. I am not saying that POS is better over POW. But, this is something you can surely consider if you are not a miner and still want to support the network and gain some profit.

Risk management:

To manage your risk I divide my portfolio into 3 parts. Class A, B and C. Higher market cap coins you can put it in class A. Medium range market cap will be in class B. And ICOs and other lower market coins will fall under class C.

You should have:
~60% of your portfolio in class A (Top 10 or 20 coins in terms of market cap)
~30% of your portfolio in class B (Top 100 coins in terms of market cap)
~10% of your portfolio in class C (ICOs or lower market cap)

Additional help:

I would recommend https://coinmarketcap.com to get information of any coins. You can see the market cap, ranking, total and max supply, circulating supply, exchanges from where you can purchase, volume on each exchange. etc.

I hope this will help you to start with. Feel free to share your thoughts below.

Disclosure: I am not a financial or investment advisor.