Instead of competing with Bitcoin like many other criptocurrencies, Ethereum complements it. And is that Ethereum is not a simple cryptocurrency. It is an operating system that allows users to create applications based on virtual currencies that can go beyond their simple financial use.
You can use Ethereum to create custom crowdfunding platforms, stand-alone digital companies, and even your own cryptocurrencies. Thus, if a person decides to set up an application to make transactions - or what is the same, send money to other people, can create a virtual currency of their own to measure the service they offer.
However, Ethereum's appeal does not lie in these currencies, but in the contract they create the system once it opened the new application. As Coin Desk explains, "a contract is an agent that creates the system to receive and send transactions, and save the balances of those transactions." Here is the innovator of Ethereum, who not only establishes a system that is beyond the control of banks and monetary authorities, but also runs away from the legal system.
Ethereum's money is called Ether and is used by customers of the platform to make payments to other people or the machines that perform the requested operations.
If Bitcoin were gold, Litecoin would be silver. Litecoin is a criptocurrency that allows instant payments and almost zero cost to any part of the world. The advantage of Litecoin is that it provides faster transaction confirmation times than any other. It is a super simple network for those who need to move small amounts of money quickly.
While other criptocurrencies avoid banks, Ripple was created for the banking system as it allows them faster and cheaper global payments. In the usual system, cross-border transactions require an intermediary (and sometimes several) between banks, which delays its completion. Ripple offers a faster and more direct alternative. For example, if a client of a bank in Spain wants to send a payment to a client of a bank in China, Ripple immediately checks both banks for their transaction fees and makes the transfer in a matter of minutes.
Ripple operates as if it were a credit institution that serves other nodes or users with whom it maintains a relationship of trust, that is, credit transactions (exchange of funds or loans) are carried out within a circle of users with whom A relationship of trust is maintained (we know we can "trade" with them). When this relationship of trust exists between the participants in the network, the sum of all these connections generates a network of users and "entities" between which credit flows and, therefore, among which economic transactions can be carried out.
This greatly simplifies regular transactions for consumers around the world.
Although Dash can be used for transactions between consumers, it was thought for a daily use, to go shopping. We could think of Dash as a substitute for PayPal. Many establishments accept Dash as if they used the country's current legal tender, but the transaction is faster. You do not have to wait a day or two to see the payment charge on your account.
Another advantage is that it allows you to keep the privacy of your finances similar to cash.
If you want to maximize confidentiality, this criptocurrency is yours. In fact, it is identified as the first cryptocurrency of "zero knowledge" for its ability to protect the ideas of all, both the senders and the recipients and even the amount of all the transactions we do in its blockchain.
Zcash was born from the project Zerocoin, which after starting as a layer of cryptographic anonymity for the Bitcoin ended up becoming an independent criptocurrency.
Another of its fundamental differences between the majority of the criptocurrencies is the way in which it is organized. Like Bitcoin and all based on it, its code is open, although it is not managed like a community like most, but Zcash is a company. And that makes the product attractive to investors.
Monero is another excellent choice for those worried about your privacy. This coin was created to give individual users total control over their money. With Monero, you are your own bank. The transactions are as transparent as you decide, since the user will be the one who decides who can and who can not see where the money goes.
Monero is one of the few criptocurrencies that have not been created from the technology of Bitcoin. Specifically, it was raised on the protocol CryptoNote, an encryption system that makes the transactions are not signed by a single person, but by several at the same time. What it does is to mix all the moneros of all those people who make transactions in such a way that it is impossible to know the origin of the funds and what is the destination.