Yep, got a good whack of my investment portfolio tied up in Crypto and got a few friends that are developers on crypto projects.
If you have a look at
https://coinmarketcap.com/, the top 25 to 30 projects are the most established in the crypto space.
Bitcoin, obvious the most well known, is arguably equivalent to Gold. It's mental that countries like El Salvador and just yesterday, Central Africa Republic, have adopted it as a currency but demonstrates the future of crypto.
Ethereum has a lot more use cases as it's the most developed smart contract based crypto. Smart contracts absorb data from other blockchains that help it code an agreement into the crypto, so for example a very simple explanation is you put £20 on Swindon winning promotion this season, if we won promotion, the smart contract would activate and pay you your winnings
Tether - It's a stablecoin that is tethered to USD. So 1 tether token is worth $1 USD. But Tether is not very transparent just don't touch it...
BNB is a exchange crypto that is similar to Ethereum (ETH) and has a lott of projects built on top of it that is exclusive to the Binance exchange
USDC is the same purpose as Tether but a ton more legit. Use USDC if you want to use stablecoin. A lot of platforms will pay 12% daily compounding interest just for hedging fiat in stablecoins
Solana - becoming the bedrock of the NFT world. Really interesting project.
XRP - embroiled in a court case with the SEC which is due to be dismissed months ago.. When it does, it will go through the roof but until the court case is dismissed, many exchanges won't let you buy or trade it.
Terra - not all too familiar with this one TBH
Cardano - ETH competitor
TerraUSD - Tether and USDC competitor and linked heavily to Terra
Dogecoin - one of the biggest piss takes in Crypto legitimised by Elon Musk. Starting to have potential but Elon loves to pump and dump it so be careful.
etc...
Other notable mentions to have a look at, Chainlink and Uniswap. So many great projects doing some great stuff with tons of potential but it's so so early in there development still, even Bitcoin.
If you want some non financial advice, set think about much you want to invest overall. Split your cash proportionately across multiple assets and buy with 5% of your total cash at a time to 'dollar cost average' buy. Spreads your risk and then just leave it. Be prepared for the highs and the lows. It can be very volatile and turn on a pinhead. But lastly, do your research. You wouldn't buy a car without understanding it's features and statistics, crypto is no different!
Give me a shout if you want to chat more, happy to talk all day about it. I've help a lot of people get onboard and collectively invested more than £50k into various crypto assets.