Moonshot Hunting Guide (Part 1): Way to Find Low Cap Crypto

🚀 Why Everyone’s Looking for the Next Moonshot

Finding the next moonshot is what every crypto investor dreams about. Turning $1,000 into $10,000 by catching an early project before the rest of the market notices. Sounds easy, right? But the reality is…

Every single day, hundreds of new crypto projects launch across different chains. Most of them die within weeks.

So where do you even start? How do you sift through the noise to find a low cap crypto with real potential?

That will be a long process, requiring tremendous efforts and time. Today we’ll cover the basic first steps. Think of this as Phase 1 of a longer playbook. In later parts, we’ll go deeper into fundamentals, on-chain analysis, and risk management. But before you get advanced, you need to nail the basics.

Before that, please give me a vote so that we can make sure things we are doing is going well!

Okay, have you done yet? Let’s go to the main part.

🔍 The Basics of Low Cap Crypto Screening

Your first stop should always be reliable crypto data platforms like CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap, or exchanges like: Upbit, Binance, Coinbase,.... These sites are the industry’s dashboard; they show you real-time prices, market cap, trading volume, and recent listings. Think of them as your radar system before you go hunting.

Oops, you said that lots of potential projects are not yet listed on this big CEX, We will dig deep in the next part of this series.

Detailed steps:

1. Sort by “New Listings”: This is where you’ll find fresh projects. But remember, 90% of these will be junk. That’s fine because we’re building filters.

2. Set filters by market cap: Look for projects under $100M, ideally in the $10M–$50M zone. That’s the sweet spot for growth potential.

3. Check volume & liquidity: A token with $50K daily trading volume is not investable. Look for at least $500K+ daily liquidity, otherwise you can’t exit when needed.

Don’t buy anything yet. This step is just about building a shortlist of candidates that meet basic requirements: decent market cap, new enough to have growth potential, and liquid enough to trade safely.

🌱 Finding Sectors That Could Explode

One of the fastest ways to lose money is chasing random tokens just because they’re trending. If you want to catch a real moonshot, you can’t rely on hype alone.

You need to focus on sectors with strong tailwinds.

When a narrative is hot, even a mediocre low cap crypto can rally hard because there’s fresh money and attention flowing into that space. But when a sector is cold, even great projects struggle to break out.

We’ve seen this play out before.

In 2020, DeFi was the big narrative, and early movers into lending protocols like Aave or yield farming platforms saw 10× or more.

In 2021, NFTs and meme coins went parabolic.

By 2023, it was all about AI tokens, with anything related to machine learning or data infrastructure pumping.

The lesson is each cycle has its chosen winners, and aligning with the right narrative early is often the difference between catching a moonshot and holding dead weight.

For 2025, I recommend you keep your radar on:

1. DeFi 2.0: Protocols that fix security and composability.

2. AI x Blockchain: Any project that bridges data and machine intelligence.

3. Layer 2 scaling: Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync ecosystems.

4. Cross-chain protocols: Infrastructure solving liquidity fragmentation.

5. NFT infrastructure: Not just JPEGs, but marketplaces, lending, and real-world assets.

If the sector has momentum, even a mediocre project can ride the wave. If the sector is dead, even a great project struggles.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 The Community Signal

A low cap crypto without a community is like a car without fuel, it cannot go anywhere. Price action alone won’t keep a project alive; what sustains it is the people who believe in it, build with it, and promote it. This is why community research is just as important as market cap or liquidity checks when hunting for a moonshot.

But not every “big community” you see is real. Some projects buy fake followers or fill their Telegram with bots to look popular. That’s why you need to DYOR and quickly check if the engagement is genuine.

Here’s how to check quickly:

Firstly, Telegram/Discord: these are usually the first places where early adopters hang out. Don’t just look at the member count.

Scroll through chat history: Are people having actual conversations about the project, asking questions, and sharing ideas? Or is it just bots dropping emojis, copy-paste GM messages, or fake hype?

If it is a telegram group, you can use telemetr.io and check the Spy - Event Tracking section to analyze real member growth and engagement.

Secondly, Twitter (X): Does the project have organic engagement (comments, debates, memes), or just airdrop hunters farming giveaways?

And if you see comments like: ”Clear roadmap and long term goals”, “No middlemen, no fluff, this token built different”,…

I mean it is 100% fake comment that they buy for getting traffic.

You should also check the community in the page bio whether they keep posting by different people or have any human-like comment?

Finally, focus on steady growth rather than hype spikes. A project gaining 100–200 new members per week is usually much healthier than one that suddenly jumps by 50,000 overnight, which often signals a botted airdrop campaign.

True moonshots tend to have small but passionate communities that grow consistently over time, not overnight explosions.

Remember, you don’t need millions of followers to catch a winning project. What matters is a core group of believers who are aligned and pushing the project forward. That is the fuel that helps a low cap crypto turn into a 10× or even 100× story.

💡 First Risk Check You Must Always Do

Before you even think of putting money in, run a quick red flag check. Most scams can be spotted in 2 minutes:

• ❌ No whitepaper or a copy-paste whitepaper.

• ❌ Anonymous team with no track record.

• ❌ Tokenomics that scream “exit liquidity” (huge insider allocations, no lockups).

• ❌ Promises of guaranteed profits or insane APYs.

• ❌ Website full of buzzwords but no actual product.

If you see two or more of these, move on. Don’t waste your time. The key to hunting low caps crypto is saying “no” fast to 90% of them.

🔑 Final Thoughts for Part 1

This is just the starting point. With these basic filters, you’ll already eliminate most junk and focus on coins that at least have a chance.

But remember, this is only Phase 1 of the low cap crypto hunting guide. In the next parts, we’ll go deeper into:

• How to do proper DYOR (team, tokenomics, fundamentals).

• How to use on-chain analysis to spot accumulation.

• How to apply risk management so one bad pick doesn’t ruin your portfolio.

For now, practice these steps. Build your shortlist of low cap crypto under $100M, identify the sectors they’re in, and check if they pass the basic risk screen.

That’s how you start turning noise into signal, and turning that signal into your next potential moonshot.