Intro
Hello! I'm going to mainly focus on cryptocurrencies that either have no competition, or serve a very niche case. First I will explain what makes them different from all other currencies (that I know of, if at any point you disagree please let me know in the comments, I'm always open to new opinions!).
Also I'm not including Steem because we all know how cool Steem is. 🙌
1. Nimiq
Nimiq's goal is to make crypto as accessible as possible. They do this by making the coin operate entirely in your browser. There's no wallet or mining software to install, its just running in your browser. This isn't the same as something like MetaMask because Metamask is simply an etherium wallet in your browser.
Why should you care?
Well, Nimiq's POW is uniquely catered to benefiting mining in the browser. By that, I mean someone with a GPU farm can't mine Nimiq as effectively as any other cryptocurrency that can be GPU mined. This means that the average user might actually mine a block once in a while, and it will probably stay that way since the heavy farmers are discouraged from mining it heavily.
Here's where it gets good.
We see all different type of advertisement coins, crypto that are trying to replace PPC providers like AdSense. But having a coin that can be effectively mined in the browser offers a different way to monetize anything online.
All it would take is the correct line of code in a website's header, and your browser will join a mining pool on behalf of the content creator, to mine Nimiq. It's been done with BitCoin before, but it wasn't effective because you can't compete with the Bitcoin mining farms.
Mine Nimiq on the Beta Network
2. Decentraland
Decentraland's token, MANA, is used to buy the world's first Virtual Real Estate. Decentraland is a VR game in which you can explore the world and build pretty much anything. The developers have described a situation in which a user wants to make a casino on his property. He can model everything in the casino, import the models into Decentraland and then attach all the casino logic.
What if I don't play video games or VR?
No worries, I don't either. But if you look back at some earlier examples of 'virtual real estate' like Minecraft servers and 2nd Life, you realize how much money there actually is in Virtual Land. The distinction between those games and DecentraLand is that there is finite space. With minecraft you can always spin up another world, but DecentralLand is 1 world. So when the game launches, the land which was purchased in the ICO will be built upon like a new city. And like every city, some land is going to be worth more than others.
Imagine a world where you could be a Virtual real estate agent selling Virtual land to Real people for Real profits.
Now stop imagining it, because you're living in it.
3. MaidSafe
Maidsafe, a long time favorite, is literally the internet made safe. Since 2006 (Pre-dating Bitcoin!), the dev team has been working to bring us all the Internet 3.0. Many other coins out right now think they are offering that, but when you look deep into MaidSafe, there is sincerely no comparison.
What is the Internet 3.0? Heck, What's the Internet 2.0?!
In the beginning, the internet was rather simple compared to today. You were either a consumer or a provider, meaning you either were the one serving files, or you were downloading them. You couldn't respond. It was essentially a global text file browser with read-only access.
Internet 2.0 came along and blurred the lines between consumer/provider, now not only can the provider send you what you want, but you can also reply and ask for more information or even ask the provider to perform a task. When you press a button your often sending a line of code to a server somewhere with a set of instructions; Save this story article, send a message to my friend, stuff like that.
With the Internet 3.0, there are no consumers/providers, because everyone is fundamentally required to perform both functions. When you join the network, you agree to act as the provider for other users of the network. In other words, they have completely recreated the internet, with every single component decentralized, by creating a fully connected graph of network users, all providing for and consuming from each other.
Here are just some benefits coupled with a crypto coin that is trying to accomplish the same thing:
1. Safe Cloud Storage
By sacrificing a portion of your hard drive to the network, you gain an equal amount of cloud storage. This is good for a few reasons: You have you're files on any device that is connected to the network, There is a lot of data protection happening behind the scenes to make sure your files are always available, only available to you, and cannot be tampered with. Here to learn more
Coins like Storj are also trying to tackle this market.
2. Secure Network Traffic
Since there is no central server, all traffic must happened between network users, what this creates is effectively the world's largest VPN.
This is essentially a side-effect from the architectural changes in MaidSafe, it isn't as explicit as something like the Mysterium Network.
3. Decentralized DNS
One really neat thing is that when you create your account, you automatically get the domain yourUsername.safe.
This is trying to be done by NameCoin.
And more
Think of another internet protocol, MaidSafe rewrote it to be decentralized.
Internet 3.0 as a Whole Package
This can go 1 of 2 ways, MaidSafe can either dominate the market and make all coins like Storj, Mysterium, Namecoin obsolete. Or coins like the ones I just mentioned might all be used in conjunction to make MaidSafe obsolete.
Why I'm Betting on MaidSafe
This project has been worked on for 11 years, before cryptocurrency was even a thing. The developers are not taking their time, they are perfecting it. They know that if there is any sort of resistance which would make it less convenient to use than the regular internet, all their work will be for not.
Conclusion
Thanks for reading to the end! I hope you learned something or at least were entertained. Please let me know down below what you think. Did I forget your favorite coin? Do you disagree? Did I get a fact wrong?
Let me know,
And keep Steeming!