Bitcoin is just one of the hundreds of types of cryptocurrencies. These other cryptocurrencies, known as Altcoins, are alternatives to Bitcoins. In different ways, these altcoins try to improve at least one aspect of the Bitcoin.

CoinMarketCap listed 640 altcoins at the time of writing this article. Nevertheless, everyday the galaxy of altcoins expands as new currencies appear. While, altcoins are created almost every day, these are mostly Bitcoin clones that change little characteristics such as transaction speed, distribution method, or hashing algorithm. Moreover, most altcoins survive for a very limited time. Indeed, according to Bitcoin enthusiasts, Altcoins cannot excel against the Bitcoin infrastructure.

Namecoin: was the first Altcoin. Its primary purpose is to decentralize domain-name registration, making censorship harder to achieve. Indeed, "by existing outside of the control of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which governs the DNS for all other domains, .bit domains can escape censorship".

--> introduced in April 2011
--> price/unit: $2.69
--> Total Supply: 7,514,992 NMC
--> Total Value: $20.2 million

GALAXY OF ALTCOINS

Altcoins using innovative hashing mechanisms:

ETH – Ethereum Cloud Mining

- Ethereum is a decentralized platform for running smart contracts, “applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third party interference”
- members can create a tradeable token that can be used as a currency, representation of an asset, virtual share, proof of membership…
- can kickstart a project with a trusts crowdsale, where funding will be blocked until a given goal or date is reached.
- a transparent and democratic organization

XPM – Primecoin

- utilizes a new“proof-of-work” based on searching for prime numbers

QRK – Quark

- super secure hashing
- 9 rounds of hashing from 6 hashing functons ( blake, bmw, groesti, jh, keccak, skein)

SRC – Securecoin

- aims to provide a faster, more secure and reliable network than Bitcoin

Nxt – Next

- improves Bitcoin by removing bloated blockcahin and environmental issues. Coins are earned by charging transaction fees.

QORA

- utilizes proof-of-stake algorithm

CLOAKcoin

- uses X13 hashing algorithm
- has na inbuilt exchange trading platform

NHZ – NeXT Horizon

- based on NXT
- uses proof-of-stake, no mining is needed to secure the blockachain

YAC – Yacoin

- hybrid PoW and PoS coin
- hashing algorithm has been changed from scrypt (1024, 1, 1) to scrypt (N, 1, 1)

SKN – Skeincoin

- uses PoW
- is energy efficient
- is secure

DRK – DarkCoin

- super secure hashing algorithm
- uses 11 rounds scientific hashing functions

SWIFT – BitSwift

- utilizes PoS
- users can send money anytime, anywhere to anyone
- transfers are almost instantaneous
- zero fees

Curecoin

- most altcoins are either in the CPU/GPU stage, or in ASIC stage
- CureCoin can be earned by both

OFF – Offerings to Cthulhu

- dedicated to Lovecraft’s fans

MED – MediterraneanCoin

- uses a new PoW: HybridScryptHash256, allowing reuse of less powerful ASIC Block Eurpter devices

MCZ – Mangocoinz – the first altcoin for smarthphones

- first cryptocurrency for Android operating system
- easily mined by every Android, smartphone, tablet.
- No CPU/GPU power required
- utilizes the phone’s sensor for translating movement energy into coins

While the Galaxy of Altcoins is ever
expanding, Bitcoin is always on the
frontline.

In the short-run Bitcoin may not replace traditional and new payment methods. Today it takes almost 40min to validate a transaction, too long of a time for daily business. Moreover, due to the criminal problems around Bitcoin, and its use in shady businesses, people and governments have been uncertain about its use. (#Vulnerability) Nevertheless, its aim to provide a securer, cheaper and quicker transaction model. So, if Bitcoin or some other similar virtual transaction system will manage to get the world’s trust, our world economy would be transformed for the better.

LiteCoin: has a much higher number of currency units. It is branded as "silver to Bitcoin's gold". It is based on the Bitcoin protocol, but mining is cheaper and more democratic than Bitcoin's.

--> introduced in October 2011
--> price/unit: $12,78
--> Total supply: 25,055,992 LTC
--> Total value: $331.5 million

Peercoin: is based on Bitcoin. Nevertheless, while relying on proof-of-work (POW) system, it uses proof-of-stake (POS) system. POS means that the more coins you have, the higher chances you have of mining more coins.

--> introduced in August 2012
--> price/unit: $2.09
--> Total Supply: 20,931,643 PPC
--> Total Value: $43.6 million

Novacoin: shares Peercoin's hybrid POW/POS sytem. It uses scrypt hashing for its POW system. It has higher POS difficulty than Peercoin. It has a maximum total supply of 2 billion NVC.

--> introduced in February 2013
--> price/unit: $9.61
--> Total supply: 5523,071 NVC
--> Total value: $ 5 million

Solarcoin: “is an alternative digital currency that works like air-miles for Solar electricity generation… it is claimed by individuals living in homes with Solar Energy panels on their roof or solar electricity producers. The goal is to provide an incentive to produce more solar electricity globally over the next 40 years by rewarding generators of solar electricity”

Whitecoin: is a stable, secure and innovate cryptocurrency in which the community prioritizes projects for developments that are important to them. Their sense of community is strong thanks to their website, voting, polling and bitcointalk.org thread.

Altcoins such as CounterParty and Mastercoin, use the Bitcoin blockchain to secure their platform.

While some argue that Altcoins are not strong enough to rival the Bitcoin infrastructure, they serve an important role in fostering the decentralization of the cryptocurrency community. Moreover, Altcoins allow the experimentation with different unique features by serving as "cryptocurrency laboratories". By feeding a healthy competitive environment, Altcoins secure the continued development and innovation in the field.

The reason altcoins started to emerge is to correct some of Bitcoin's perceived limitations. Litecoin (LTC) and Fastcoin (FST).

CoinGecko publishes a comprehensive coin metric analysis. In the chart above, we can see that coins are ranked according to their overall strength in the realms of certain important factors such as liquidity, public interest, development activity and market cap.

Altcoins.com is a list of Bitcoin alternatives. It provides useful information for one to get familiar with alternative cryptocurrencies. For example, it indicates the download locations, exchange information and mining guide for each altcoin.

Cryptocoins may use different proofs of existence:

- Proof of work: used by Bitcoin through Hashcash proof of work system. It is costly and time-consuming to produce.

- Proof of stake: like proof-of-work it attempts to provide consensus. It may provide increased protection from a malicious attack on the network. It "makes the rich even richer".

- Proof of burn: works by burning proof-of-work mined cryptocurrencies (cf. Slimcoin, TGCoin) instead of burning electricity. Burning means sending coins to an address where they cannot be redeemed.

- Proof of capacity: implements the idea of "megabytes as a resource". Nothing is burned, but a significant volume of the hard drive space needs to be allocated to start mining. This approach is efficient and provides botnet protection.

- Proof of Activity: each block is a product of combined effort of Proof-of-work and Proof-of-Stake

- Proof of Ddos: cryptocurrencies that reward attacks on TLS web servers. (Cf. DDoSCoin)

- Proof of Space: has been suggested as a more egalitarian version of the proof of work. In alternative to the computation required in the PoW, in the so-called proof of space (PoS), “a service requestor must dedicate a significant amount of disk space”

CREDITS:
Rachele Angelica Miscioscia

SOURCES:

What is an Altcoin? (2014). Retrieved October 30, 2016, from https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/altcoin/

Khaliq, A. Bitcoin Alternatives: 10 Cryptocurrencies You Should Know. Retrieved October 22, 2016, from http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/bitcoin-alternatives/

SolarCoin - A global rewards program for solar electricity generation. (official website). Retrieved from https://solarcoin.org/en/front-page/

Patterson, R. (2015, August 26). Alternatives for Proof of Work, Part 2: Proof of Activity, Proof of Burn, Proof of Capacity, and Byzantine Generals - Bytecoin Blog. Retrieved October 22, 2016, from https://bytecoin.org/blog/proof-of-activity-proof-of-burn-proof-of-capacity/

Redman, J. (2016, August 13). Proof-of-DDoS: A 'Malicious' New Consensus Mechanism. Retrieved November 22, 2016, from https://news.bitcoin.com/proof-ddos-malicious-consensus/

Dziembowski, S., Faust, S., Kolmogorov, V., & Pietrzak, K. (2013). Proofs of Space. Retrieved November 22, 2016, from https://eprint.iacr.org/2013/796.pdf

Ethereum Project. (n.d.). Retrieved October 22, 2016, from https://www.ethereum.org/
Q., Mr. (2013, July 25). Primecoin (XPM): On the search for the unthinkable. Retrieved from https://litecoinblog.org/primecoin-xmp-on-the-search-for-the-unthinkable/

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