Quark - 6 encryption methods vs 1 for BTC, LTC, Doge, all popular coins
It only needs 800 NEW $/day to maintain its value vs 3 million NEW $/day for BTC and 1 million NEW $/day for Doge
It is one of the fastest coins with transactions confirmed in 30 seconds vs. 10 minutes for BTC, 6 minutes for LTC
It has a community, not at Doge, BTC, or LTC levels but its growing - http://www.reddit.com/r/QuarkCoin
Its undervalued relative to infrastructure.

Peercoin - Love the developer and this means a lot with cryptos! Things could change and PPC will adapt.
Amazing new marketing push coming around (500,000$ put down).
Resistant to 51% attacks because of the checkpoint system.

Infinitecoin - IFC is a great investment for a similar reason to Quark, it needs very little $ a day to maintain its value.
Has a good community and lots of development going on.

Litecoin - A pretty stable crypto and somewhat less risky investment than many coins.
It has a huge community and many projects going on, like a mini-bitcoin in terms of marketing.
Great developer.
Definitely a better option than BTC, and while I believe that QRK and PPC are much better coins, this could win out if consumers choose it.

Pennies - CENT is not a solid investment. It's extremely risky, but I put money into it because I like the idea.
It is a complimentary currency that goes along with others and isn't competing to be #1 or #2.
It was made so people wouldn't have to .00001 BTC for a sandwhich, they can just use their CENTs.
This is my least researched coin, but it looks like it has potential.

I don't really venture past the coins that are available on BTC-E, but I do enjoy in dabbling with the coins that they have on offer there.

I think that it will be worth holding some LTC and FTC should BTC really kick off again.

Diamond - Diamond combines the best from Bitcoin Litecoin Novacoin Luckycoin Florincoin , it uses both Proof of Work and Proof of Stake. This provides a excellent resistence to 51% attack. It also combines the random block feature from Luckycoin, making it the first coin in Pow/PoS category to use random blocks. It also supports transaction comments like Florincoin. This coin has very low transaction fees. It provides steady coin supply at 1 diamond per block for 8 years. Diamond development was taken over by a new high motivated team. Diamond have the potential to earn 100x or even 1000x of invested money if u plan longterm for now people try to keep value low until the got enought of them into their wallet (pretty hard because only 1440 mined each day).

Worldcoin - serious coin created to stay strong dev&comuinty support (still ranked below diamond because max per coin value gains have a much lower potential)

Earthcoin - serious coin created to stay strong dev&comuinty support (still ranked below diamond because max per coin value gains have a much lower potential)

doge - in my oppinion not serious coin but for now ideal to mine and sell i dont worry that i dont keep that coins in my wallet its only purpose is pump&dump

litecoin - if low risk and GPU mineable is ur thing ltc is still the coin but dont expect to become rich set ur goal to payoff ur gpu ina few months that will be possible a 100x value change is unrealistic

I really appreciated your thoughtful post.  I don't really have five altcoins yet and analysis like this helps, I had dismissed quark as an instamine scam, your comments suggest maybe I was wrong.

Right now I would say:
Doge - Yes it is currently overpriced but it has a great community, doge-dice alone made sure this coin had some early legs, if it can continue to get support it will be a survivor.

Litecoin - I like what they are trying to do but am worried it is too close to bitcoin.  Doge developed almost as much infrastructure of support as LTC with much less time.

That's funny. Come at my investments bra, they're all solid!

Quark is the 4th most active reddit coin - behind BTC, LTC, and Doge
Quark has a foundation constantly funding infrastructure projects - http://www.quarkfoundation.cc/projects/
Quark has an active dev who can be reached at any time

And it has a good marketing push with many videos/infographics/media connections (Still, Keiser) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb8si58DW9Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe4Myh5Rw9M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeP7REZXLjU



@Galbros - Certainly no instamine scam. Originally, people were saying it was premined but this was completely disproven by the Announcement thread on here (posted the same day as the genesis block was mined). Then came the instamine 'scam' concept which is interesting and harder to disprove. But, if you are seriously considering a large investment, I can show you why it is unlikely that Quark's mining process led to an unfair distribution. If you look at Cryptsy's volume from launch until it shot up in price, miners were dumping the coin continuously for near nothing into the hands of many investors. Now, it is still a cheap coin.

I'm not saying make it your sole investment as many others do, but it should be a third of your portfolio. I often recommend BTC 40%, LTC 30%, and QRK 30%. BTC and LTC are somewhat safe, while QRK is a high reward/high risk coin that I believe in!

Let me only address the coins mentioned here.
Avoid at all COST:
Pennies
Infinitecoin
Digibyte
Earthcoin
Doge
Diamond
Netcoin2
Frozen
Aliencoin
secondscoin

.......
The other ones seem fine, maybe add MEC, CGB, SBC.

Litecoin
Dogecoin
Coino
Noble
UFO

Worldcoin- because of Scharmbeck
Kittehcoin- because of Doge, and max Kieser
Dogecoin- because of volume
Etheruem- because of Andreas Antonopoulos
Scharmbeck shares- not a coin but yea


This is a winning list, believe it if you want.

ITT: free advertising

1) Quark - well because the community is pretty incredible and actually has the capability of becoming big. The economic model and the cost all seem really appealing to me. I truly think 3 main family of crypto-currency will raise. Quark being CPU while Litecoin, and bitcoin is GPU/ASIC. The top 3 will definitely be Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Quark coin. Also the Quark video is so well made.



2) Dogecoin - for now but it's not something that is going to last. I do think the community in Doge is pretty incredible, but because of the name and billions of coins that is being mined. I just don't see it lasting. I really do hope it last because a lot of people will end up hurt at the end if it crashes.

3) Emunie - They looks really promising and I can see it becoming big.

4) Curecoin - Seem interesting on what they're trying to do.

5) Zerocoin - Seem interesting too.