Question: I'm interested in \*coin, but I'm afraid of sinking money into something out of idle curiosity and then losing that money to value fluctuations. Would it be a good idea to have several different \*coin (lite, doge, idk what else there is) so that the fluctuations balance each other? 

Have different \*coin in the past gained and lost value in 'lockstep', or totally independent or inversely?

I'm aware that I would also loose the chance to gain money from course fluctuations, but I don't that's [something to loose sleep over](http://blockchain.info/de/charts/market-price).

Answer: 
I don't see how different coins would protect against volatility, as Bitcoin is by far the leading cryptocurrency, and the others (even all of them combined) are really totally insignificant in terms of market cap and trading volume. 

If you want to protect against volatility (given that you measure volatility in terms of value expressed in fiat currency), there's two options:

* use [Coinapult Locks](https://coinapult.com/locks/info)
* keep part of your money in fiat

Simple as that. Seriously, just not investing part of your money in something is the best and easiest way to suppress its volatility.
You should see \*coin as a **very high risk** asset. The strategy "diversify your investment" only works on regular stocks since people generally see the markets rising over large amounts of time on established companies. (The fluctuations average in accordance to the *law of large numbers*)

It is much more risky to invest in something completely new no-one has genuine, long-term experience with. Stating that, the *law of large numbers* cannot be applied since chances are equally high for rates to explode or crash. 

tl;dr **Diversifying does not really work on \*coins by now**