Crypto Coin Families

With hundreds of new alt-coins on the scene how do you tell which ones are innovative and which ones are not? We'd like to suggest 4 major Crypto-Coin Families that represent the current landscape of digital currency.

BITCOIN

With its SHA-256 algorithm and exclusive ASIC mining, it is the Godfather of all crypto currency, and brings along with it a healthy number of similar coins.

LITECOIN

Although Tenebrix was the first scrypt coin, Litecoin has emerged as the leader of its kind. Most new coins these days are scrypt clones with the popular GPU mining model which draws many followers over on BitcoinTalk. Unfortunately, these clones bring nothing new to the table, just change some numbers around and design a new logo is all that is needed to have your own scrypt clone.

QUARK

This innovative coin launched just 6 months ago finally brought something new to the table. Although it is based off of Sifcoin, it is clearly the current leader of its respected family. It offers 9 rounds of hashing from 6 different hashing functions (blake, groestl, blue midnight wish, jh, keccak, skein), and is only accessible with CPU mining.

IPO Coins

Although no clear leader, coins such as Ripple or NXT fall into this family. Coins that fall under this family, offer an IPO or crowd-funded at the beginning to give it value. It is said one of these coins will bring forth Crypto-Currency 2.0!

