Despite Bitcoin’s continuing strength, altcoin developers are still putting their case for alternatives this year - some are more compelling than others.

A group of Slovenian developers is focusing on Ethereum’s Smart Contract platform, to produce not just another token, but a more complex system that shows what can be done with the technology.

Considering themselves the next generation of altcoin developers, they are focusing on Creditbit, an extant hybrid proof-of-work or proof-of-stake cryptocurrency originally released with the aim of providing up to ten times faster transactions than the Bitcoin Blockchain.

Hybrid coins, smart contracts

Initially developed in 2015, Creditbit went through a quiet period before resurfacing with the new development team. The future of Creditbit 2.0, as it is now known appears ambitious.

“It will be implemented as an Ethereum token smart contract on Ethereum’s platform,” a lead developer wrote this month. “The decision came to be because Creditbit wants to be more than just another cryptocurrency. It is planned to have some custom, decentralized functionalities, which befits the new era of Blockchain technology.”

These “custom” options include several spin-off projects beyond a simple tradable token as the original Credit Bitcoin is still freely tradable on several exchanges.

According to developers, a DAO is planned, along with a “decentralized commodity market” named CreditBay and CreditGame, a token distribution method with details is still forthcoming. Meanwhile, a migration network for transferring holdings from the current Creditbit to the Ethereum token is expected imminently.

Although the mood surrounding Ethereum remains lukewarm as investors focus on Bitcoin’s prowess, the announcement that Creditbit was changing its spots appears to have injected enthusiasm into users, making its value rise in January. Volatility, however, remains extremely high.

Smooth conversions

Technically, developers promise a “fully compliant ERC20 implementation via a working proxy contract, which means that integration will be simple and will work outside of the box for all community-driven services that are standard compliant,” including Block Explorer and Web wallets.

“Besides that, the additional benefit is that in the case of an upgrade this will be done without affecting the users if a need for standard token migration occurs,” stated a Bitcointalk post in their official thread last Friday.

According to the latest developer announcements, initial token conversion to Creditbit 2.0 will be available from March 8.

Where’s the consensus?

Meanwhile, a final consensus on Bitcoin could pose new selling point problems for altcoins as a whole. Most recently, Andreas Antonopoulos and Tuur Demeester have joined calls to activate so-called Segregated Witness technology as a solution to the Blockchain’s ongoing scaling issue.

“I’m for SegWit,” Antonopoulos reiterated on Twitter last week.

@theonevortex I'm for segwit, not because of scaling, but because it offers solutions to many technical issues in bitcoin. — Andreas (@aantonop) January 16, 2017

HashCash founder and proof-of-work algorithm creator Adam Back praised his advocacy meanwhile, calling an explanatory post on Segregated Witness from August “the best he’d seen” on the topic.