We focus on factual accuracy, relevance, and objectivity in our editorial policy. Our content is crafted by some of the top crypto experts in the industry. Each piece goes through a detailed review by our experienced editors to ensure our content meets the highest standards. It allows us to provide real, detailed crypto reviews from our team of crypto experts who have years of first-hand experience dealing with crypto, finance, and emerging technology. Learn more about our crypto asset testing and review process .
At 99Bitcoins, we are committed to providing unbiased, in-depth, and trustworthy evaluations of cryptocurrencies and blockchain projects. Our reviews are grounded in extensive research and analysis, conducted by a team of industry experts with years of experience in crypto markets and blockchain technology.
We examine each cryptocurrency comprehensively—whether it’s a well-established coin or a new, emerging asset. This includes evaluating its technology, use case, adoption record, development team, market performance, and community support. We also assess security, liquidity, and regulatory considerations, ensuring that our reviews are not only informative but also practical for all types of users and investors.
Here are just some of the metrics and data points we consider when creating our reviews:
Factors Analyzed:
Our goal is to comprehensively dig into every project we review, leaving no stone unturned, and then present that complex information in a way that’s clear, concise, and accessible, helping both beginners and seasoned investors navigate the crypto industry. We strive to remain fully transparent in our methodology, providing unbiased insights that empower our readers to make informed decisions with confidence.
Our reviews go deeper than simply sourcing publicly available data. Our team of experts has been reviewing and using cryptocurrencies ourselves for over 10 years.
We put hundreds of hours each week into reviewing, researching, and getting hands-on experience with thousands of cryptocurrencies, blockchain DApps, and DeFi protocols. We’ve been covering crypto since 2013, and in that time, we have made friends with some of the best and brightest in the industry. If there is something our talented core team are unsure of, we have no shortage of industry experts to consult.
You can learn more about who we are and our commitment to our community and the cryptocurrency industry on our About Us page.
Cryptocurrencies & Projects We’ve Reviewed At a Glance:
Our Team has Hands-on Experience With and Tested:
Our Review Process
Our thorough and comprehensive review process goes through many stages to ensure a well-balanced and honest assessment. After years of honing our review process, we aim to address essential features, everything from security measures to the user experience to help ensure that our community is well equipped to make informed decisions. Our primary responsibility is the safety of users in the crypto industry, so we conduct thorough due diligence and do our best to ensure that any risks are adequately highlighted.
Here is our multi-step approach to evaluating cryptocurrencies and blockchain projects
Step 1. Preliminary Research
We have dozens, if not hundreds of projects reach out to us consistently, asking for us to review them. Then, of course, there are the dozens more crypto projects that crop up every week that we encounter from crypto Twitter, Reddit forums, news aggregators, and the like. While we would like to take the time to review every project that comes across our desk, it simply is not possible. Our first step is looking at the team, the project, the community, and tokenomic distribution.
There are always exceptions, but more or less, if we see the following, it’s a pass right off the start and we don’t want to waste our time reviewing:
Step 2. Market Fit, Team, Utility, Use Cases, and Potential
At this stage, we like to take a look at and assess the project from a high-level overview. We look into the credentials and experience of the founders, check to see if there is a market fit and need for the project, if there is real utility behind the project, the use cases and hurdles the project aims to overcome, and if there is potential.
These are the basic boxes we want to see checked at this stage:
Step 3. Community, Reviews, and Socials
Community engagement plays a key role in evaluating the legitimacy and sustainability of any cryptocurrency project. A strong, active community often signals a project’s long-term potential, while poor engagement can be a red flag. We assess not only the size of a community but also the quality of interaction—how involved and supportive its members are, and whether there’s ongoing, meaningful dialogue.
We also closely monitor how responsive the development team is to user concerns, bug fixes, and updates. This helps gauge the commitment to maintaining and improving the project over time. To ensure a comprehensive review, we analyze conversations and trends across a variety of platforms, including Reddit, X (formerly Twitter), and Telegram groups, as well as other popular crypto forums.
Step 4. Diving into Metrics, Data, and Technicals
Steps 1-3 largely revolve around collecting what we refer to as “soft data.” Much of the findings uncovered during these steps are based on hearsay, speculation, the biases, opinions, and beliefs from community members and ourselves based on our own experience and history in dealing with crypto projects.
Step 4 is where we start gathering “hard data”, the type that is numerical, verifiable, and immutable. At this stage, we will take a closer look at the whitepaper, uncover the tech stack and consensus mechanisms deployed, understand how validators nodes or mining algorithms operate for the project, and analyze the blockchain layer architecture, node types, etc.
Once we have a good understanding of the project from a functionality and technical perspective, it is time to look at on-chain metrics and developer information such as Github commits, developer activity, TVL, usage metrics, traffic volume, fees & revenue, governance, etc.
Here are some of the tools we use to conduct our research:
Research Tools:
Step 5. Security Check & Compliance
Ensuring the security of cryptocurrency platforms, networks, DApps, and protocols is a key part of our review process. We conduct comprehensive assessments of each platform’s compliance with financial regulations, as well as any emerging government policies that could impact its operations or value. If potential regulatory issues arise, we inform our readers so they can make informed decisions. We also disclose any significant past regulatory challenges the platform may have faced.
As the crypto industry is still largely unregulated, we are not here to take a side regarding controversial topics such as whether or not DeFi protocols should or should not be regulated, we simply do our best to inform our readers of the current legal and regulatory landscape and standings so the reader can make their own decisions.
Our security evaluations cover critical elements like wallet protection, private key management, encryption methods, audits conducted, security features, and transaction security. We analyze these measures to ensure the platform is well-protected against hacks and fraudulent activity. Additionally, we conduct a thorough background check on any past security breaches, examining their severity and the steps taken to prevent future incidents.
To ensure our team is well versed in crypto security best practices and perform due diligence to the highest standards, our team members have collaborated with and consult the findings of top blockchain security agencies.
Collaborated With
Consult Reports From
Step 6. Tokenomics and Price Performance
A thorough analysis of tokenomics, price performance, and supply and demand/economic fundamentals is essential to evaluating any cryptocurrency. We assess each asset’s total supply, circulating supply, and market cap to understand its current market position and potential for future growth. These factors help us gauge scarcity, inflationary pressures, and future potential.
We also evaluate the project’s scalability and adoption potential by examining its use cases and the competitive landscape. This gives us insights into its long-term potential and whether it’s positioned to withstand market shifts or technological advancements.
Liquidity is a crucial aspect of our review process. We analyze the asset’s presence on major, reputable exchanges, daily trading volumes, and order book depth. This helps us determine whether investors can buy or sell tokens efficiently, with minimum slippage or delays. We also research any prior issues or controversies, the concentration of token holders, vesting schedules and unlocks, and early investor private sales to analyze and warn of potential sell pressure.
Price performance is another important area we investigate. By analyzing historical price data, we can identify volatility trends and assess overall price stability. We also monitor broader market sentiment, news, and industry trends, tracking both long-term and short-term price movements to predict potential shifts in the market.
By combining these factors, we provide our readers with a comprehensive, data-driven view of each crypto asset’s tokenomics and price performance.
Step 7. Testing
At 99Bitcoins, we believe that hands-on testing is essential for providing reliable, in-depth reviews of DeFi protocols, Dapps, exchanges, wallets, and cryptocurrencies. Our rigorous testing process is designed to evaluate key aspects of each platform and product to ensure that we deliver the most accurate and trustworthy insights to our readers. Here’s how we approach testing in each category:
DeFi Protocols
When testing DeFi protocols, we focus on usability, security, and smart contract functionality. Our team assesses how easy the platform is to use for both beginners and experienced users. We also evaluate liquidity pools, yield farming options, the governance approach, the token treasury, staking mechanisms, and token swaps to see how efficiently these features perform in real-world scenarios.
In addition to use, we will check on-chain metrics to evaluate things like TVL, usage metrics, tokenomics, fees and revenue, and more. Security is a top priority—our experts scrutinize the protocol’s auditing history, check security ratings from blockchain forensics experts, scour through user reviews for worrying experiences, and assess whether it offers adequate security features in place to measure against hacks.
Dapps
For decentralized applications (Dapps), we examine the core functionality, user experience, and integration with underlying blockchain networks. We test how the Dapp performs across various devices and environments, focusing on its ease of use, responsiveness, and whether it delivers on its promised features. Security reviews are equally important, where we investigate how the Dapp handles data privacy, user permissions, and any risks associated with interacting with external smart contracts. We also consider adoption potential, evaluating the size and engagement of the user base.
Exchanges
When reviewing exchanges, our testing covers critical areas like liquidity, ease of use, and security. We test both centralized and decentralized exchanges to understand how quickly users can trade assets and whether the platform offers competitive fees and a wide range of supported cryptocurrencies. Security features, cold storage, proof of reserves, and encryption protocols are scrutinized and we review the reputation of the exchange, its regulatory compliance, and any history of security breaches. Customer support, withdrawal and deposit times, and the availability of educational resources are also important factors in our evaluation.
Wallets
For wallets, our testing involves evaluating security, usability, and compatibility with various blockchain networks. We focus on how secure the wallet is— completed security audits, the type of encryption, the backup and recovery process, the security certifications of the chips and inner parts, security breaches, and additional security features such as multi-sig, Shamir Secret Sharing, MPC technology and pin, password, and biometric protection.
Usability is another critical aspect, where we assess the interface, ease of sending and receiving crypto, and whether the wallet is beginner-friendly. We also test the wallet’s compatibility with different cryptocurrencies, and for hardware wallets, we look at physical security features and durability.
Cryptocurrencies
When testing individual cryptocurrencies, we analyze the blockchain’s overall functionality, transaction speed, fees, security, transaction volume, and usage metrics. This involves testing the crypto’s performance in real-world use cases, such as transferring tokens, interacting with smart contracts, and participating in governance mechanisms (if applicable). We also consider factors like energy efficiency, the ecosystem of applications built on top of the blockchain and measure decentralization based on the following metrics:
- Miner/Staker location & distribution
- Mining Pool/Staking Operator concentration
- Node/Validator location & distribution
- Number of miners/validators and validator clients
- Concentration of token holders
- Nakamoto and Gini coefficient and Shannon Entropy
This rigorous testing process ensures that we provide comprehensive, unbiased, and trustworthy reviews for our readers. By focusing on real-world usability, security, and performance, we empower users to make informed decisions when interacting with DeFi protocols, Dapps, exchanges, wallets, and cryptocurrencies.
What the Ratings Mean
Our reviews feature a rating at the end of each article where we highlight pros, cons, and rate the product based on different criteria such as security, ease of use, design, etc. The final figure is an average between each of the category ratings as seen below.
The following table provides an explanation of what the final review ratings showcase:
| Rating | Description |
| 0-3 | A score from 0-3 indicates very poor findings from our team and that the cryptocurrency, blockchain project, crypto app, DApp, or DeFi protocol has failed one or more of our key reviewing criteria. It is very rare for us to rate a project this low as we would prefer not to bother reviewing it or even highlight it in the first place. |
| 4-6 | A score from 4-6 means the project we reviewed is average. Depending on the areas where points were lost (such as security), readers may choose to avoid it, but if the points were lost on something like design, our readers may choose to continue if they are not concerned about UI/UX.
The weaknesses will be highlighted and improvement suggestions made. We generally recommend users avoid projects with this low of a rating, but they may be worth keeping an eye on as they may have potential in the future should the project improve. |
| 7-9 | A score of 7-9 indicates a strong project with good fundamentals and no major security vulnerabilities or red flags. These projects may have some standout features and are among the platforms and products that we would be confident in using ourselves and recommending to our readers. |
| 10 | A perfect score of 10 means that our team was unable to find anything to critique about the project, product, team, or anything else during our review process. While no project is perfect in every measure to every user, a 10 indicates a fantastic project or product. |
How We Keep Our Reviews Current
In the lightning-paced crypto industry, this is a Herculean task. Every day there are new developments, either in a project’s tech, upgrades, improvement proposals, changes in adoption trends, hacks, scams, news developments, and the constantly evolving regulatory environment. We do our best to ensure we continuously update our reviews to ensure they maintain accurate and relevant. We have dedicated team members committed to keeping an eye on the industry and action updates to our published content in a timely manner. This ongoing commitment to accuracy and relevance is one of the reasons our community has trusted 99Bitcoins as a source of authority and expertise in the crypto industry since 2013.
