How to Troubleshoot Apps for the Modern Connected Worker
Alternative payment technologies march 2013
1. Alternative Payment
Technologies
A few alternatives to Bitcoin
Ron Gross
ron@bitcoil.co.il
2. Imitation is Flattery
• Only 21,000,000 coins
• Bitcoin is open source
• You can change the code and create Bitcoin2 with
more coins?!
Well, it already happened …
15+ times in the last 2 years.
4. Modifications
• Number of coins
• Inflation schedule
• Mining algorithm
• Mining speed
• New non-monetary operations
• Support for many currencies (P2P dollars and euros)
5. Namecoin
Launched April 2011
• Motivation: Free the internet
• Distributed Domain Names (piratebay.bit)
• New operations: Register/renew/list name
• “Merged Mined” with Bitcoin
6. Litecoin
Launched Oct 2011
• Motivation: Everyone is a miner
• Bitcoin mining was only done by strong graphics
card
• Soon dominated by custom costly hardware
(ASIC)
• Litecoin changed the mining algorithm so normal
computers can mine
7. PPCoin
Launched Aug 2012
• Motivation: Remove the miners
• Bitcoin mining costs money for hardware and
electricity
• Let people mine by holding PPCoins
(In addition to miners)
• Complicated security model
8. Freicoin
Launched Dec 2012
• Motivation: Tax the rich
• Today, the rich get richer
• In Freicoin, the rich get poorer
• Negative interest (demurage)
• Money disappears from you and goes to miners
9. Ripple
Launched Jan 2013
• Motivation: Replace banks but not your currency
• Not a blockchain, not a fork!
• Unlike the others, a strong startup with
high profile personnel.
• Represents money as debt/trust/IOUs
14. Summary
• Exciting times for crypto-currencies!
• Lots of noise, scams, and dead projects
• A few interesting, strong projects
• Still small compared to Bitcoin