There is an old, proven investment approach that has worked well for me in long-term altcoin investments.
I have been investing for over 40 years, in stocks, commodities, forex, and first used this approach with stocks.

The concept is called dollar-cost averaging. Nothing new, been around for years, but I think it is the best way to invest long-term in crypto and take advantage of the volatility.

Basically you invest the same dollar amount (or Euro, or any other fiat) at a chosen period.

For example you invest $10 a day in your favorite coin(s). You purchase exactly $10 of the coin(s), each day. When the price is high, you get less coins, when it is low you get more. What this does over time is significantly lower your average price per coin.

With stocks, we bought once each month. With the volatility of cryptos, I invest once each day. With bitcoin, I have been doing this a long time, so when the price was $1200, I bought very little, now with the price at $350 I can get more each day, and my average price per coin, remains low.


So how do you you apply this to cryptos?

1. Pick you favorite 2 - 4 coins. Coins that have been around long enough, that you believe in their long-term value.
2. Pick your investment period - once a day, once a week, etc.
3. Pick your periodic amount - $1, $10, $100, whatever your budget.
4. Purchase exactly that amount, every period. Don't play the market, don't second guess, just the same amount every period.

If you are right about the long-term story, you will accumulate a lot of coins at the best price, and avoid getting killed because you bought in at the highest price. And even if the price does not recover to its highest record price, like BTC at this point, you can still make a profit.


The coins I invest in this way are:

Bitcoin - because it is the undisputed leader
AppleByte - because it has steady price growth, good volatility, and is building a long-term user base
Doge - With the paypal deal, it is here to stay, and has the most loyal community of all alts.

What are your top choices?

There used to be a ton of them. If it is true that the darknet has settled on Darkcoin, that should be a huge plus.

I believe Doge is here to stay. When Paypal announced the deal accepting BTC/LTC/Doge that significantly changed the market dynamics. I think Doge will be under considerable price pressure for the next year, because of the sheer number of coins being created. But it is here to stay, so this next year should be a great year to accumulate it.

AppleByte

Honest, experienced Devs
Responsive support
Real long term niche, supporting artists
Devs paid in bitcoin, premine used to support AppleByte Foundation, giving awards & scholarships to artists
No pumps & dumps, no airdrop
Pool gives bonuses to CPU & GPU miners

Congrats, that is why I am buying and holding ABY 

Fair enough, but why would I not just hold my own bitcoin assets, instead of as you say, let the "bank of NXT" hold them?

For some time, I would not have agreed with the OP, but yesterday I heard of two coming coins, a musician was making their own, and a well known actor was making one. Seems like these will not be currency at all, but merely virtual souvenir tokens.

In every POS coin the incentive is to hoard, not to spend.

I buy, I get dividends...
I buy more, I get more dividends...
I buy even more, I get even more dividends....

I keep doing this for what? months, years?

In the mean time there is no where of significance to spend my coins.
Plus the mantra tells me, don't spend, hold, get more dividends

Eventually this ponzi game has to stop, for we hold bunches of coins with no where to spend them.

If I am wrong, show me a POS coin that has many places for me to spend my coins,
and I don't mean a handful of tiny websites, but hundreds, thousands of places to really spend, like with bitcoin.

And do you really think that on one magic day, all us coinholders can convince merchants to accept a coin simply because we hold a bunch of them?
The merchants will rightly ask, "but who will I sell them to?"

[Edit] I was told later in this thread that when you want to spend coins, you just convert to BTC. But that is making a huge assumption. That is, while I am holding my assets in POS coins, their value (including dividends) relative to BTC remains the same or improves. If their price relative to BTC drops (for example, NXT certainly has this year) than I am screwed. My money would have been better left in BTC.

I am not trying to spread fud on any one coin, or calling any of them scams. It is just the concept that seems flawed to me. Particularly when as an investor, I am now faced with 20-30 of these coins, which are proclaimed as the "best way to hold my assets".

Apparently they feel different...

Hmmm... Let me think?

Winklevoss: Harvard, Olympic team, Millionaire investor

Spoetnik:......?


Whose advice should I take?

With all the turmoil in the alt coin exchanges, Mintpal financial issues, Cryptsy withdrawal problems, hacker attacks on all of them.
What are some good exchanges to trade on? Sufficient volume, timely withdrawals, etc.

I use and like poloniex, but want to add another exchange. I am thinking Bter or Bittrex.

What has been everyone's experience?

Wasting money on publicity stunts like race cars, does little for the value of the coin

I wish I could login and withdraw my money 

Are the twins investing in AppleByte?

I've been in ABY from the beginning, still mining and still holding 

With all the changes in the altcoin exchanges recently, who would you rate as the top 5 in terms of volume (not counting exchanges like btc-e, and others with a limited number of coins)?

Looks good, I will check it out. It is time for another exchange, since some of the old ones have stumbled 

That's great news! Must be why the price on poloniex has moved +22% today 

With all the new alts out there, what does LTC have to offer? What is it's reason for being?

ha, I pointed an old dell laptop at the pool last night, getting just 2khs, and getting 5 ABY every 1 1/2 hours, 80 a day!
not bad