Originally posted on 01/25/2021:
Not advice but if I were young and just starting, I'd study as much as possible about DeFi and get in right now. That's where the get rich coins are and this stuff only comes around every 3 or 4 years. Of course this is very risky.
There really aren't that many categories of coins. For the most part:
Cryptos just straight ledgers such Bitcoin, LTC, BSV
Privacy coins : XMR, DASH, ZCash, ZEN
Smart contracts: ETH, ADA, EOS, TRX, NEO
NFTs : MANA
DeFi - this is the new game with smart contracts, lending, business apps and more. DOT and LINK are the major players.
For someone that wants to learn about bitcoin, listen to Andreas Antonopoulos.