Which crypto currency should one invest in and why?

None. It's not an investment, it's speculation, and you have decent chance of losing all your (real) money buying fake money.

Cryptocurrency gets a lot of hate on HN, justified or not.

I put money into crypto, but I look at it like gambling. Would you spend that same money on lottery tickets? If not then you probably shouldn't put it into CC.

Yes, people have made huge gains. I'm sure there is some sort of science to playing the market, but right now it seems all speculation and memes.

If you have money to burn, believe in the technology, and aren't afraid to let your money sit in a wallet somewhere for years and year - don't buy into it.

It's a gamble, not an investment. There's no security, nothing to back it, and if some other blockchain-esque tech or fad comes along it could be dumped at a moments notice.

Also - wait to put money into BTC until after aug 1st. There's a chance it could split and whatever you have now isn't guaranteed to be there after.

I would say one should go for Ripple and Bitcoin, as the prices are going down for now, it would be a great time to invest. For ripple the reason is that it is very cheap, compared to other CrypCurys and thus investing in it gains you more and faster retruns. Bitcoin because it is one of the most known CrypCur and is down for now, which I think would surely go up.

There is not enough data to back test a trading strategy, no volume, no reliable exchange, so I don't see any reason to redeploy part of my capital from the stock market to cc, maybe one day all this will change, but until then it is pure gambling to me...

None