There's more to doing your own research than just reading the whitepaper. Here are the 4 basic fundamentals of doing your own research:

1. Technology

"Does it need blockchain?" It's a simple but crucial question. You should distinguish between firms that are using blockchain to solve real-world issues and those who are simply cashing in on the blockchain buzz. Look into their website, see if it's solving a genuine problem or is just buzzword soup. None of that 'Ethereum Killer' or 'Bigger than Bitcoin'. If it isn't solving a problem or substantially improving the productivity of an existing space, chances are it will not succeed.

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2. Team

A cryptocurrency is only as good as the team behind it. A firm need not just a large number of capable technical employees, but also a competent marketing team. If the team is anonymous, drop the idea of even investing into the project completely. To ensure that each team member knows what they're doing, look into their backgrounds (LinkedIn profiles, education, social media).

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3. Community

Another essential element is to look at the community's engagement. Explore sites like Reddit, Twitter, Telegram, Slack, and other social media and cryptocurrency discussion forums reveals the community's participation and enthusiasm for the firm. But don't completely believe others. There are so many unqualified people on YouTube, TikTok, Twitter and Reddit too giving bad advice on what to buy. People are biased because of their own investments. Always rely on your own research.

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4. Tokenomics

Finding market information about the cryptocurrency you're interested in should be a big part of your research. The total token supply, market capitalization. Look at the blockchain explorer to see what percentage of the supply the founders hold, what percentage whales can rug pull. Look into their roadmap to see how much they are putting into marketing, collaborations, coin development and what they plan to do in the future.

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Sources for research

A good place to start would be CoinMarketCap, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, Telegram, Medium, SimilarWeb(To look at website analytics) and Github(to look at their source code). Only use these sources for research purposes, don’t invest on a company because somebody told you so.