The only thing that you can really go by is marketcaps and wisdom of the crowds:
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/volume/24-hour/

Yobit already ****ed me out of about $1500 of ethereum. All these shady exchange ****ers.

I want to buy Cardano...so I guess I'm going to have to use an exchange whether I like it or not. I guess I need to buy Ripple too on the next dip, as much as it pains me. And when I say buy that means I would convert BTC to alt coin..and I don't like reducing my holding of my baby :(

I'm not actually holding any bitcoin or even ethereum. Everything I have right now is Altcoins. I feel like that's where the greatest amount of growth is going to come, and eventual stability. To that end, I feel like Ripple is the safest thing that anyone can invest in today for solid long-term gains because it has an actual industry use case that it was specifically designed for. I'd look into its little brother, Stellar Lumens. That's a good Ripple spinoff that could turn into a mainstream coin. I feel like Cardano has a ton of value in that regard as well. It's got a 30m marketcap right now, and there is no reason that it shouldn't be at a billion by the end of the year, if not much sooner (given a run like Ripple has made). If it does that, that's a $4.00 coin. Not bad from where it's sitting now.

I probably should take more stake in ETH and BTC, but there is so much explosive opportunity in the altcoins right now that I have a hard time leaving money on those two.

Also look at VeChain. They've got a pretty strong coin, IMO. Do your own research and make your own decision. I'm holding some VeChain, and plan on holding some more! :)

Alt coins are for poor people.

I kid. I kid. Kind of. So many shit coins. So much BS to sift through.

I just got in on VeChain recently, looks to be pretty legit. WTC is out there, and somewhat similar, but in on VEN for now. I want to put some into TRX today, but the GDAX transfers are all stuck right now. :/

Ripple has been booming the last 2 weeks. I understand the market cap concerns, but surely XRP could rise to $50 at some point this year, right?

Let's do some simple math here :

Ripple at $3 is a 120 billion market cap

Lets times that by TWENTY

That's 2.4 TRILLION dollars.

So - do you think Ripple will be a $50 coin this year?

I don't think so, but it's hard to tell. Right now it's at $113 billion dollar market cap. That's up from 9 million less than a month ago, which is a huge rise. For it to become a $50 coin, it has to reach $4.3 trillion dollar marketcap. To put that into perspective, the entire market cap for cryptocurrencies is at an all time high today of $730 billion. It's not realistic to think Ripple can be a $50 coin for some time to come (unless financial institutions start stampeding into the cryptospace, and big retailers like Amazon start announcing adoption).

Consider that right now, Bitcoin is the market dominance leader at $250 billion. It's easy for me to believe that Ripple could catch up, and even beat Bitcoin in market domninance. So if Ripple were to get to, let's say, $260 billion, that would make it a $3.00 coin, provided that the supply remained consistent.

Ripple is a slow growth, steady coin. I use it as part of my "safe" investment base where I put 50-60% of my total stake (Cardano, Ripple). Then split some (45%) on on medium risk (IOTA, XLM, EOS, VEN), then high risk (XVG, TRX) and the final 5% on sub penny gamble coins that look like they've got promise (I recently got in on EmberCoin, which is soon going to be a GPS coin called Chartis).

No one is going to "get rich quick" on Ripple at this point, but it can serve as a very stable growth coin that will grow steadily as the market grows, and challenge for dominance. Any altcoin porfolio is incomplete without it.

***DO NOT MISTAKE ME FOR YOUR FINANCIAL ADVISOR***

Ripple defeats the entire purpose of crypto. Ripple is pumping so that the big holders can take all of your money and convert to ETH or BTC (real ideas) and you'll be holding the bag with your $1 XRP that has very little upside.

People think XRP is going to be added to Coinbase and "explode" and don't understand that there are 17 million bitcoins and 600 kajillion ripple coins and don't understand even the most basic math.

Ripple might go up to $5 a coin, I don't know, people are stupid - but if I held ANY ripple and saw that is was trading for $3 - I would sell half, IMMEDIATELY, and get as many $930 ETH as I could get.

Ethereum is real societal progress - Ripple is garbage ass centralized banker bullshit.

Hmmm... my numbers are off a little because the supply has moved and it's not up to date in my spreadsheet.

XRP is over $3 on some exchanges right now.

Correction: for Ripple to get to a $50 coin, it has to have a $2T marketcap.

...which would mean all of crypto would have to get to about $10T marketcap

Gold is at about $8T

If this happens - sell, sell, sell because the whole ****ing thing will collapse.

If crypto wants to really be the future - it can't keep growing THIS fast. There is too much stupid money entering the market. I see $10T in the future - but any time before 2025 and this thing is going to topple over.