New code?
Look at the features they list for the coins.
You can literally compare the features listed by some coins to the features of other coins and they are exactly the same because it's just a litecoin clone with some variables changed.
>oh but we put mining in the wallet!
>b..but.. it has a second faster transaction speeds!!
Most of them are hilarious, and when other coins start copying the code of the coin you are looking at, it may be an indicator it's not another clonecoin scamcoin.
Example: Darkcoin's X11 algorithm runs mining hardware cooler, and lots of coins have already copied it, along with DGW (I think).
That's because Darkcoin has an actual legitimate development team working on it, instead of some Indian/paki freelance programmer some greedy guy in the USA paid to create a clonecoin/scamcoin with a 50% premine.
Another indicator the devs actually care about the coin is when they implement some peer-reviewed paper on a feature, like CryptoNote or CoinJoin, or Darksend or Zerocoin.
Those are privacy features, but see the peer-reviewed papers:
https://cryptonote.org/whitepaper.pdfhttp://darkcoin.io/downloads/DarkSendv3.pdf (Darksend is distributed implemention of Coinjoin)
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/coinjoin-bitcoin-privacy-for-the-real-world-279249 (CoinJoin, probably some other sources I can't locate)
http://zerocoin.org/media/pdf/ZerocoinOakland.pdfhttp://eprint.iacr.org/2014/077.pdf (Mixcoin, something I found just now from:
International Association for Cryptologic Research
The International Association for Cryptologic Research is a non-profit scientific organization whose purpose is to further research in cryptology and related fields. Wikipedia
Founded: 1982)
Found another just now, Coinshuffle
http://crypsys.mmci.uni-saarland.de/projects/CoinShuffle/coinshuffle.pdfThese are research papers that are in the process of being implemented as features in crypto-currencies.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/really-really-ultimate-blockchain-compression-coinwitness-277389Some interesting things like ^ CoinWitness blockchain compression (haven't read much into it).
http://www.scipr-lab.org/pub^ A source for privacy research, creating "Zerocash" a modified Zerocoin protocol (I think).
Youtube video of a presentation on the upcoming Zerocash:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXU65XsLiFk