Author

Topic: Introduce me to an alternative cryptocurrency that you think is "good" (Read 241 times)

legendary
Activity: 2366
Merit: 1624
Do not die for Putin
Name: Grin
Reference implementation (source code on GitHub): https://github.com/mimblewimble/grin

Is the link above original code (as opposed to copying/forking another project such as bitcoin core with minimal change)? (yes/no): Yes (IMO)
Is it truly decentralized? (yes/no): Yes (GPU mining, ASIC resistant)

Does it have any premine, instamine, shadowmine, ICO fund raising, etc? Nope

Can any individual mine this altcoin? Mention the mining algorithm. Yes, anyone with a GPU with 6GB or more.
Quote
Grin’s consensus model is an iteration of proof-of-work

Can any individual run the full verification node (or equivalent e.g. witness nodes in DAG based coins) capable of enforcing consensus rules of this altcoin? Mention some of the requirements. Yes see here

A short (max 100 words) summary describing the cryptocurrency: A privacy oriented coin, implementing the "MimbleWimble" protocol by (pseudonim) Tom Elvis Jedusor that allows anonymous exchanges with low fees. Mimblewimble math base is the Pedersen commitment based on using the difficulty of factoring large numbers to hide the details of the transactions.


What makes this altcoin different from bitcoin as a decentralized currency? Privacy oriented and, as of today, cheap. Non ASIC.

What is the innovation in this project? Protocol basically.

How is that new innovation used in real world? What real world problem does it solve? It solves privacy in a quite elegant an cheap manner. No absolutely unique on that, but still good. It obviously solves the need to transfer value without the rest of the world knowing it, which is useful when you do not want to let others know of your wealth, spending habits or earning.

Most important of all
Have you ever used this altcoin?
It is a privacy oriented coin, so I am sure you understand I won't answer that question Smiley

What wallet are you using for this coin (full node, web wallet, hardware wallet, custodial such as exchanges)? https://grin.mw/download
Are you running or have you ran this coin's full node? Why not? No, I do not have the hardware to spare for that.
legendary
Activity: 3906
Merit: 6249
Decentralization Maximalist
I was following a link from a thread about transaction fees and the scaling issue, and this "challenge" sounded interesting to me. Smiley

First I want to mention Helpix.world's list of decentralized altcoins. Perhaps you can find some alternatives there - it is already a bit older (2019), but not much has changed since then. I have also made my own list of decentralized, no-premine cryptos, I call them "Classic Altcoins" (however without discriminating instamines, because it seems difficult to me to find really convincing criteria for that).

I second NeuroticFish that Monero is clearly one of the "good" ones (may be in my personal top 5, too).

Now to my contribution to the thread: a very small altcoin called Slimcoin (SLM), which I support (not as a developer but writing help texts and small secondary apps). Here's why I'm interested in it:

Name: Slimcoin
Reference implementation (source code on GitHub): https://github.com/slimcoin-project/Slimcoin

Is the link above original code (as opposed to copying/forking another project such as bitcoin core with minimal change)? (yes/no): Yes. It is based on Bitcoin/Peercoin code but with major changes, see below.
Is it truly decentralized? (yes/no): Yes, it follows the Bitcoin model closely.

Does it have any premine, instamine, shadowmine, ICO fund raising, etc? No
Can any individual mine this altcoin? Mention the mining algorithm. Yes, it uses a custom ASIC-unfriendly algorithm called DCrypt.

Can any individual run the full verification node (or equivalent e.g. witness nodes in DAG based coins) capable of enforcing consensus rules of this altcoin? Mention some of the requirements. Of course. There are no requirements other than running the client. Memory usage however is relatively high compared to other coins, above all when mining and/or minting.

A short (max 100 words) summary describing the cryptocurrency:
Slimcoin started in 2014 and was the first cryptocurrency which uses the Proof of Burn mechanism as part of the consensus algorithm. It also uses Proof of Work and Proof of Stake, thus it might be unique as a (still existing) coin using three different mechanisms at once. In most other aspects it follows the Bitcoin model.

What makes this altcoin different from bitcoin as a decentralized currency?
To put it into few words: It is likely that the consensus mechanism encourages long time involvement and discourages short-time speculation. Also, the three different consensus mechanisms may lead to a better power distribution than in Bitcoin (where miners hold a strong position in the governance scheme and can potentially block progress). In Slimcoin's PoW/PoB/PoS system normal holders (PoS) and "burners" which can be described as long-term risk-taking holders (PoB, see below) also have strong positions.

What is the innovation in this project?
The main one is Proof of Burn. Basically, it works this way: People can burn coins sending them to a special address without known private key. The more coins you burnt, the less hashrate you need to find a proof-of-burn block. See below for the possible advantages.

Proof of Burn wasn't invented by the Slimcoin creators, but by another developer called Iain Stewart, but Slimcoin is the first known implementation. There were a couple of other PoB implementations, the only surviving one to my knowledge is Litecoin Cash (which calls it "hive mining"), but I wouldn't call this one decentralized.

A second innovation is the DCrypt algorithm mentioned above.

How is that new innovation used in real world? What real world problem does it solve?
The first advantage is that it provides an additional way to participate in validation, which does not only take into account the mining hashrate or your holdings, but also a risk you're willing to take. A person who burns coins cannot use them anymore - only for minting. They will normally need several months to break even with block rewards. So they "commit" to the coin's success when they burn.

The second possible advantage is the main reason why I support this coin, but is pending confirmation because there was never really a mature market to confirm the hypothesis: Proof of Burn could in the long term lead to more stable cryptocurrency prices and lower volatility. This may come from those factors:

1) Proof of Burn encourages long term investing, as already written. So if you burn coins, these coins cannot be sold, they become a "frozen" asset which only can be used for minting. This may help to lower selling pressure in bear markets, above all in "panic"-like events.

2) It is easier to burn more coins when they're cheap. So the "burn rate" could increase when the price is low. As burnt coins reduce the available supply, this could lead to a phenomenon that in low price phases the supply will grow slower (or even decrease) than when the price is high and the risk is higher to burn the same quantity of coins. However, there is a limit to this effect, because when people burn many coins in a timeframe, there is more competition for block rewards.

I think I don't have to explain the possible benefits of a significantly less volatile cryptocurrency than Bitcoin and most altcoins. But again, these effects are speculative, but they could make sense.

Most important of all
Have you ever used this altcoin?
I could say that I received a small "donation" in this coin but the work I did was related to it, so it probably won't count for you. It's still more an experimental project than a currency. What I already did was proof of burn minting, and it worked fine.
What wallet are you using for this coin (full node, web wallet, hardware wallet, custodial such as exchanges)?
Mainly a full node, and temporary an exchange node.
Are you running or have you ran this coin's full node?
Yes, I run a full node, but not permanently. I also have run a testnet node when it was needed.

Some additional notes: Slimcoin is a very small coin (market cap: ~$100K) and has also a lot of related disadvantages - practically zero acceptance in commerce, only one exchange, a lack of developers, and a general lack of "ecosystem". The advantages I described above are currently purely "theoretical". So I currently can't really recommend  to invest in it. It has potential, but it has to be seen if it flourishes or continues to sleep. In the last months however there were developments which give some hope (a new innovative token system, possible total code renewal).
legendary
Activity: 3668
Merit: 6382
Looking for campaign manager? Contact icopress!
BTW by "fork" I mean something that is a direct copy of another project such as hundreds of coins called bitcoin-something that have little to no difference compared to bitcoin and have zero innovation, or a coin that copied another project changed the name and all they did was change the time between blocks, supply and trivial things like that which can't be called "innovation".

Thanks for making it clearer. I didn't want to go into "prohibited" territory and get the post removed for not complying...

I'll start over (maybe you can even remove my previous post now):

Name:
Monero

Reference implementation (source code on GitHub):
https://github.com/monero-project/monero-gui

Is the link above original code (as opposed to copying/forking another project such as bitcoin core with minimal change)? (yes/no):
It's not the first Cryptonote coin, but it has a lot of changes since then, hence I can say it's now original.

Is it truly decentralized? (yes/no):
Yep.

Does it have any premine, instamine, shadowmine, ICO fund raising, etc?
No premine, instamine and such.

Can any individual mine this altcoin? Mention the mining algorithm.
The mining algo was kept ASIC resistant and lately even GPUs don't have much benefit from mining it. The algo is RandomX and a modern CPU can get something off it, although not much if mining with only one CPU (cents/day?).
An interesting fact is that the Monero miners I've seen in the last years don't use the whole CPU (at least in my tests), hence you can leave it running while you are surfing or doing normal (not CPU intensive) operations.

Can any individual run the full verification node (or equivalent e.g. witness nodes in DAG based coins) capable of enforcing consensus rules of this altcoin? Mention some of the requirements.
Full node can be installed, sync-ed and ran and the blockchain size is nearly 100Gb.

A short (max 100 words) summary describing the cryptocurrency:
What does Monero comes with? The privacy is guaranteed by code/math. This makes the coins fungible (all are equal, no way to have the concept of tainted coins). And this should ensure the proper (real) anonymity.
And imho, although it's pretty old project now, it's still quite well maintained. Interesting fact, it used to get new version every 6 months to update mining algo against ASICs. I don't know if that still happens, but there's a big chance it is.

What makes this altcoin different from bitcoin as a decentralized currency?
The difference from Bitcoin is that you can give anybody your address and he will not be able to see the content of it unless you want to (and you give him a special view key). Unfortunately I don't know all the details on view keys. Also iirc it has variable block size, avoiding congestion. And quicker block times (2 min). And different emission curve.

What is the innovation in this project?
I will say proper anonymity guaranteed by math. There could be RingCT and such, but I may be wrong...

How is that new innovation used in real world? What real world problem does it solve?
Anonymity should be a right, still from banks to Bitcoin, all allow (certain) people look into your pocket. Monero doesn't.

Have you ever used this altcoin?
I've used this altcoin in the past and I am still holding a small amount.

What wallet are you using for this coin (full node, web wallet, hardware wallet, custodial such as exchanges)?
Wallet... it has command line wallet, it has GUI wallet (both running with local full node), it used to have web wallet (but who uses that?) and from what I know it can be used with some of the hardware wallets too (at least ledger).

Are you running or have you ran this coin's full node? Why not?
I ran the full node only as long as I needed to make my transactions. I don't have full node for Bitcoin, which is the coin I am much more "in touch" with. If I'll ever get to do that for Bitcoin, Monero would be next.


It would have been nice if I would have known better the details of this coin, but unfortunately I don't. However, I hope I've answered good enough.
legendary
Activity: 3472
Merit: 10611
It is not the first Cryptonote coin, hence it's a fork.  Sad And your rules are pretty strict.
You can present your arguments on merits of a coin even if it doesn't meet all my "strict rules". For example in case of Monero the arguments could be about what new things does it bring to the table compared to another alternative or older project.

BTW by "fork" I mean something that is a direct copy of another project such as hundreds of coins called bitcoin-something that have little to no difference compared to bitcoin and have zero innovation, or a coin that copied another project changed the name and all they did was change the time between blocks, supply and trivial things like that which can't be called "innovation".
legendary
Activity: 3668
Merit: 6382
Looking for campaign manager? Contact icopress!
I will be shilling here Monero. It's not new project, and its anonymity and fungibility makes it leader in its field.

Git: https://github.com/monero-project/monero-gui

It is not the first Cryptonote coin, hence it's a fork.  Sad And your rules are pretty strict.
Unfortunately I am not great on making nice advertising pages and you also wrote that I should stop if it's a fork, hence.. that's all for now.
legendary
Activity: 3472
Merit: 10611
legendary
Activity: 3472
Merit: 10611
This is not investment seeking or investment advice.

Tokens or basically any coin that is not a stand alone cryptocurrency (relies on another blockchain or platform) are not acceptable.


I want to see what altcoins you think are "good", have some innovation and deserve to be called "crypto-currency". Basically anything that can act as an alternative to bitcoin as a decentralized censorship resistant global currency.
I'm looking for detailed explanation not just name of some random altcoin.
Here is what you need to answer (feel free to add points you feel is appropriate at the end):

Name:
Reference implementation (source code on GitHub):

Is the link above original code (as opposed to copying/forking another project such as bitcoin core with minimal change)? (yes/no):
Is it truly decentralized? (yes/no):
(If the answer to any of the above 2 is no, don't continue)

Does it have any premine, instamine, shadowmine, ICO fund raising, etc?
(If the answer is yes, explain why you said yes to being decentralized)
Can any individual mine this altcoin? Mention the mining algorithm.
(If the answer is no, explain why you said yes to being decentralized)

Can any individual run the full verification node (or equivalent e.g. witness nodes in DAG based coins) capable of enforcing consensus rules of this altcoin? Mention some of the requirements.
(If the answer is no, explain why you said yes to being decentralized)


These yes/no questions should filter out most coins. If the coin doesn't have any of the above conditions then it doesn't belong here.
If you insist on still introducing it (like a coin with a huge premine) you better have a damn good explanation of why you think it still is a viable decentralized currency.


A short (max 100 words) summary describing the cryptocurrency:
(I haven't set any minimum because I want it to be in your own words not copied from somewhere like their website)

What makes this altcoin different from bitcoin as a decentralized currency?
(Just saying things such as "higher TPS", "bigger blocks",... is not acceptable. You have to be able to tie it all together, for example how does the coin has higher TPS and remains decentralized and how does it deal with blockchain bloat, node centralization, etc.)


What is the innovation in this project?
(e.g. what is new in this project or what new/different technologies is it using)
How is that new innovation used in real world? What real world problem does it solve?
(e.g. smart contracts are hot these days but they haven't solved any real world problems that couldn't be solved by bitcoin already)


Most important of all
Have you ever used this altcoin?
("Using" doesn't mean having bought or mined and stored it in a wallet to sell for higher price. Using means taking advantage of the innovation that you hopefully explained above, benefited from the features it offers, used it to pay for something just like any other currency, ...)
What wallet are you using for this coin (full node, web wallet, hardware wallet, custodial such as exchanges)?
Are you running or have you ran this coin's full node? Why not?


I may add some more questions here based on suggestions or replies.
Jump to: