Currently, CoinMarketCap lists over 1300 different cryptocurrencies. Most of them can be safely ignored, but there a are a few rarely known gems that warrant a closer look, even if they currently do not have the market cap of Bitcoin or the media hype that surrounds Ether.

Groestlcoin (GRS) was launched in March 2014 by gruve_p with the goal to create a more agile, technologically advanced cryptocurrency. Today, a team of over 20 developers and supporters works tirelessly to improve GRS. Instead of a roadmap, they use a release schedule, bringing at least one major update four times a year (On the 22nd of March, June and September, and the 25th of December).

Speaking of technology, GRS was the very first cryptocurrency to implement SEGWIT in 2017, one of the first to implement Lightning, and it's still the only coin that can be sent via SMS message. Upcoming features include atomic swaps and hardware wallet support.

GRS uses its own, less power-hungry mining algorithm called Grøstl and is ASIC-resistant. The maximum supply is 105,000,000 GRS, with a circulating suppy of 68,867,554 GRS at the time of writing. It has a block time of one minute with a reward of 5 GRS per block. Transfers on the Groestl chain are cheap - it costs 0.000045 GRS (~0.000025$) to transfer 10,000 GRS.

GRS is currently listed on BIttrex, LiteBit.eu, LiveCoin, Cryptopia, CCex, Bisq and Coinexchange. Its price rose from less than a cent at the beginning of the year to a current value of 0.54$ per GRS.

For more information, I recommend you visit Groestl's website or read their whitepaper. If you have any questions, just visit the GRS Subreddit or say hi on Twitter.

The one question I didn't answer is "What the hell is a Groestl?" - let me quote from the FAQ:

Groestl is an Austrian dish which is very similar to the American food 'Hash'. So the coin really actually means 'Hashcoin'. ... You'd pronounce it like 'Groosel-Coin' or 'Grossel-coin' (Depending on preference).

EDIT: Groestl is in the process of implementing Lightning, but has not yet activated it.