The last lesson made the case for doing your own research. This one is the research. "DYOR" stays a slogan until someone shows you what the work actually looks like — so here it is: six checks, in order, doable in about an hour with nothing but the project's own public materials. One mindset note before the list: good research is mostly disqualification. You're not looking for reasons to like a project — the marketing already gave you those. You're looking for the reason to walk away, and "no" is a perfectly successful result. Most of the time, it's the result.

Check 1: Can they explain the problem?

Start with the whitepaper or docs — every serious project has them, linked from its site. You don't need to understand the technical sections. You need the answer to one question: what problem does this solve, and for whom? A legitimate project can say it in plain sentences. If three pages in you're swimming in "revolutionary synergistic ecosystem paradigms" and still can't say what the thing does, that's not your failure to understand — that's the finding. And one instant disqualifier: any promise of returns in the official materials. Projects describe technology; promises of profit are a different genre.

Check 2: Who builds it, and are they alive?

Look for the team. Named people with verifiable histories are the easy case — check that the histories are real and that these people actually claim the project on their own profiles. Anonymity is the nuanced case: Bitcoin's creator is anonymous, so it can't be an automatic disqualifier — but an anonymous team holding a large slice of the supply behind heavy paid marketing is a pattern with a very bad track record. Also check the pulse: when was the code last updated, the docs last touched? Public code repositories show this openly. A "live" project with six silent months is usually a website wearing a project costume.

Check 3: The supply questions

You have this entire toolkit from the tokenomics lesson, so it's three lookups: how much of the supply circulates versus waits locked (the FDV gap), who got what at launch, and when the unlocks open. Serious projects publish allocation charts and unlock calendars; data sites aggregate them. If the answer is "the team and early investors hold half, unlocking soon" — you now know who's planning to sell, and to whom.

Check 4: Does the token have a job?

The quietest red flag in crypto: a perfectly reasonable product attached to a token with nothing to do. Ask what the token is for — paying the network's fees, staking for security, governance with real power? Or could the product work identically with the token deleted? When a token's only function is "go up," the project isn't selling technology — it's selling the token, and the product is the costume.

Check 5: What does the community talk about?

Open the project's public chat or forum and just read for ten minutes. Healthy communities argue about the technology, file complaints, ask hard questions that get real answers. The bad pattern is unmistakable once you've seen it: every message is about price, "wen moon," and anyone asking a substantive question gets deflected or banned. A community that only discusses the number is telling you what the project actually is. Bonus check: is there any sign of yield being promised? Then the question from the DeFi lesson applies in full — where does it come from?

Check 6: Who profits from you buying?

Finally, audit how the project reached you. An influencer's enthusiasm may be a paid placement — disclosure rules exist precisely because so often it is. A friend's tip is usually just recycled from someone else's thread. Even this site: we publish exactly how we make money so you can run this check on us, and you should. The principle is universal — every recommendation has an incentive behind it; research means finding the incentive before trusting the recommendation.

The fast-fail list

Any one of these ends the research early, verdict reached: guaranteed or projected returns anywhere official; urgency in any form — countdowns, "last chance" presales; an anonymous team plus a marketing budget; yield with no explainable source; claims you can't verify from any primary document. An hour is the budget, but most failing projects don't survive the first fifteen minutes. That's the checklist working.

The takeaway

Research is six questions asked in order: a problem they can explain, builders who are real and active, supply that isn't a loaded spring, a token with an actual job, a community that talks about something other than price, and an honest map of who profits from your yes. None of it requires expertise — only the willingness to look, and the discipline to let "no" be the answer it usually is.

You've reached the end of Crypto 101. From here, explore the tools, read the breakdowns, and keep asking your own questions.