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This website lists hundreds of crypto currencies. Some whimsical, others with a unique value.
Is there a catalog, or diff between all the implementations that highlights innovation, or a unique use case?
My goal is to prioritize which implementations to learn the most (BTC, ETH, and Ripple with the most market cap is my first priority)
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99% of altcoins claim an "innovation" that is broken or unproven.
I would say that the first thing to do is look at unique codebases that aren't based on Bitcoin, which basically means (besides Bitcoin) you should look at Ethereum, Ripple, NXT, Monero, BitShares. Then if you're bored, PeerCoin / NuBits and Lisk.
Once you are done with those you can look at altcoins that just clone Bitcoin, but if they don't have whitepapers with cryptography that explains what they're doing then they're just full of hot air.
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A very large majority of these altcoins are essentially scams. There is a cottage industry that takes a coin, changes something minor (name, logo), and releases it with great fanfare, enticing people to buy it, allowing the forker to unload their typically worthless coins.
As Нонн Болдырев said, there is a small list of worthwhile coins. I'd leave Ripple out, since it's not a cryptocurrency per se, but otherwise his list seems sensible.
Here's my very short list of interesting currencies:
I can't comment on the others on Нонн Болдырев 's list due to not knowing enough about them.
What makes Ripple different? – goodguys_activate – 2016-06-03T16:41:40.533
2It is totally centralized (ie, controlled wholly by Ripple Labs). It does use the concept of a blockchain though. – user36303 – 2016-06-04T07:40:52.687
Searching out unique codebases is a great approach to prioritizing alts. In addition to the list above, consider Vcash and the newly released Steem. – brandondoge – 2016-06-03T14:46:17.297
3@brandondoge Vcash isn't a new codebase, it refactored the Bitcoin code base (which breaks copyright and is illegal...) – Нонн Болдырев – 2016-06-03T15:42:02.860
Source to the claim of illegality? Poloniex and Bittrex are typically very careful with compliance, so I find it hard to believe that Vcash is in direct violation of copyright law. – brandondoge – 2016-06-03T16:11:07.410
4https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=920344.0 (gmaxwell is a bitcoin core developer). Bitcoin core is MIT licensed, and apparently (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=920344.msg10125574#msg10125574) copyright notices were stripped, which is directly against the licence, and therefore the copying of the code is not permitted by copyright law, as they do not have a licence for it. – user36303 – 2016-06-04T07:45:51.263