Sometimes I wonder if people research these coins, I mean really research them... I mean, LTC and ETC don't hold a candle to XEM's technology. What is Ethereum.. a service/application platform. I respect that and respect their development team, but NEM's code/platform has a much more robust platform for handling the type of volume that larger institutions require. Sure these other alts can handle trading at the volumes these exchanges have, but for banking level scalability, XEM is where it's at. It could easily take over as the number one coin that all the exchanges use to trade against and handle the volume with ease, with a lot less cost and electricity use of bitcoin.
Mostly ETH is home to worthless tokens that are being pumped... as if the people backing these tokens can be promised to keep their word. Tokens are a step removed from the actual blockchain technology itself.
The only other interesting tech I've come across so far is the proof of signature tech that is being developed by Xtrabytes, which is why I've bought some of that. Also have some Ark. Xtrabytes is in the process of transitioning to their new blockchain from the old one (it started out at a scam coin with a different name and was taken over, renamed) .. I don't necessarily know if this tech is really a huge improvement in security over what XEM offers, but it's interesting nonetheless. Static nodes verify all transactions, and any node trying to put out faulty transactions is blocked. Combined with what I think is a good name, I'm willing to invest a bit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnweayYyhlQ 
