FINALLY! This took far too long to get done. People, life can really get in the way of living. I'll give you a minute to contemplate that.

In part 1 and part 2 of this series I examined Tron, Horizen, Pirl, Ethergem, Callisto, and Dash. In part 3 I'm going to look at a few more projects that I really like. Minexcoin, Pivx, and of course, Ethereum Classic. Let's start by examining ETC.

ETHEREUM CLASSIC

ETC came into existence on July 20th, 2016 after Ethereum performed a hard fork to recover lost ETH that were stolen from members of the DAO. The DAO was an Ethereum venture capital fund, that was going to invest in projects using smart contracts. Shortly after they were formed, a paper was released showing that serious vulnerabilities existed in the Ethereum blockchain that could result in the theft of ETH.

In June, 3.6 million ETH was stolen from the DAO. After much discussion, it was decided to perform a hard fork that would take the ETH that was stolen, and move it to a new smart contract, and allow for the recovery of those funds.

Members of the Ethereum community unhappy with this decision, which they felt was going against a core tenant of blockchain technology, that the blockchain was immutable, and could not, or should not be changed. They decided to stick with the original Ethereum blockchain. Since that decision, they have made incredible strides to becoming one of the most useful cryptos in the market today.

One of the things that gives ETC an edge is their extensive partnerships. Whether it was their partnership with Zeniex to bring secure integration of ETC in to some of the largest Southeast Asian Exchanges, it's full compatibility with IoT (Internet of Things), and it's partnership with UTRUST.

ETC has gained considerable ground due to the involvement of some high profile investors like HCM Foxconn-DCG, and DFG. These heavyweights give ETC Labs the ability to throw it's dev power at things like Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, and of course Internet of Things.

ETC Labs Core is now the defacto core development team, after the dissolution of ETC Dev in December of 2018, along with the ETC Cooperative, and tech company IOHK(which works on both ETC and Cardano cryptographic tech.) Ethereum classic is in poised to become an absolute powerhouse in the blockchain world.

ETC was one of the few coins to cause a stir when Coinbase announced it was looking into listing ETC on it's exchange, but the testing and acceptance of ETC took a lot less time than people expected, and after a flurry of trades giving ETC a boost, it dropped by 30% shortly after being released on the platform. Also after suffering a 51% attack, and most recently a double-spend attack, ETC is recovering slowly as skiddish investors moved away for a time.

All in all, Ethereum Classic is probably one of the strongest investments you can make right now. This is not a short term, get rich quick thing, this is a long term investment that will probably have a colossal payoff in the long term as it solidifies it's infrastructure, and brings it's higher end development projects to the market. I can't recommend this bad boy highly enough.

MINEXCOIN

Minexcoin is a blockchain project with a couple of really solid goals in mind. Firstly, they want to be a cryptocurrency payment platform using debit cards that will work like any other debit card at the store or online, and secondly, they want to be an investment platform similar to cold staking, but with a twist.

MinexPay is the name of their crypto-debit card project. The debit cards link to your Minex web wallet and allow you to send supported cryptocurrencies to the web wallet and convert them to fiat right in the web wallet. You now have a fully funded debit card. The cards have already shipped and are available world-wide.

Minexbank is their online sort of savings bank. You link your public account key to MinexBank, and it shows you how much Minex you can 'Park' for a given period of time. By 'Parking' your Minexcoin, it gains interest, similar to a savings account, or similar investment plans.

What makes this idea even better is the fact that you are rewarded even higher returns if you 'Park' your coins for a longer period of time. 0.073% to park daily, up to 45% for parking your coins for 1 year. You can also park your coins weekly, monthly, quarterly, and 6 months.

If Minexcoin continues to expand these ideas out, they could become a great contender to replace your traditional bank. Minexcoin is used to replenish the wallet through the non-refundable balance and card activation. You can also invest your minexcoin, in the MinexBank, which helps to secure and grow your investment simultaneously.

I love the concept, they appear to be implementing the ideas well, and as long as they continue down this path, they are looking like another solid, long term investment.

PIVX

Pivx is a project with a big goal in mind. Pivx wants to be fast, private, and secure, and they are doing so through zero knowledge proofs, zerocoin based zPos, and a massive network of Masternodes to help secure the network, and keep it moving quickly. transactions are approved in 60 seconds or less, cost less than a penny in fees, and are incredibly secure, and totally anonymous.

Since I find it hard to explain it better, I'm going to use PIVX's own words to give you a good understanding of just how cool this coin is. Here's the basic premise, right from the source...

PIVX: Private – Instant – Verified – Transaction(Tx) is an MIT licensed, open source, blockchain-based cryptocurrency with ultra fast transactions, low fees, high network decentralization, and Zero Knowledge cryptography proofs for industry-leading transaction anonymity.

PIVX is the first cryptocurrency to implement a directly spendable Zerocoin protocol and has also developed and implemented an industry-first Zerocoin-capable Proof of Stake consensus algorithm, called zPoS, that allows complete privacy of the balance and transactions while staking.

PIVX also utilizes a decentralized network of masternodes that allow feature services, treasury management, and community governance.

PIVX project is focused on advancing its privacy technology to ensure fungibility, improving network scalability, and increasing real-world utilization to become a globally-accepted decentralized online digital currency.

Pivx is a really solid project, has a very active and vocal development team, and a pretty fervent fan base. What makes them a cut above is that they also have a model that is sustainable. They've created 3 ways to earn PIVX, giving investors a way to both earn and secure the network.

ZPOS. With their zPos protocol, the network is secured and transactions verified, you can stake both Piv and zpiv(Some zpiv is autominted in your wallet when it has a balance and is open and unlocked for minting.), with zpiv also being used for fees, and also to send PIVX using the zerocoin protocol. You can send zPiv as Piv to any internal or external address and your transaction, and personal information will remain anonymous.

MASTERNODES. The other way you can earn more Pivx is to setup and run a masternode. Masternodes help secure the network and transport, or move transactions across the PIVX blockchain. Masernode collateral is 10,000 PIVX. The average payout from a single master node is around 75 Pivx a month.(Approximately $62 a month in earnings.)

I love Pivx, and I think they will be around for the long haul. This seems like a solid investment with great long-term viability and potential for growth.

I've decided to add a 4th part to this series, where I will discuss the new breed of privacy focused coins such as Grin, Beam, and Pirate. No date on this. Part 3 took me a lot longer to write than I wanted and so hoping for a timely release of part 4 would be silly.

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CryptoKeeper0x

Discord: @Cryptokeeper#4413

Minds: https://www.minds.com/republikid

Publish0x: https://www.publish0x.com/cryptokeeper

Steemit: https://steemit.com/@libertybiscuit

*Donations

EGEM: 0x40E791e1913bd6F308CDAfd769894f54eD14E983

VERGE: DSfrhCH9r6LfvzQEzj4nAkjhQ6TVdx6LwP

TRON: TBmqG6Fn7EJbTpJuWst48FfvdoGUfs7WA8

ETH: 0xbACD3e61De447876049AdfCCa52Cc20Fa640b1f7

ERC-20: 0x47eECEeCb8893A91Bb856979994eeA57ceF528EC

BITCOIN: 18PhP1L2Jq94Qa69qxdyNjVtoeWKefq7F4

BCH: qqak4lnjrjn7j40q8rqux5fvduyaajayhyfqhpgsre

HORIZEN: znZUNNcMu23DwVC841978RTgTwHWXRUBk6W

DASH: Xe5TXVa9DnbqJ66VvbSwMB6zdqZQa47FaL

BANANO: ban_3p65kpfsb7agg9y7pk79m1k1wdo178qwu66fm4qc5echizf5yeeph6i9tuks