A review of some of Bitcoin's forks / alt currencies, Ripple included.

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.

3. Bitcoin Alternatives (“alts”)
Namecoin
Solidcoin
Litecoin
Open Transactions
Devcoin
IxCoin
PPCoin
Tenebrix Freicoin BBQCoin
CoiledCoin
Rucoin BitcoinX
Ripple

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

10. Ripple
Bob Charlie Jane

11. Ripple
$100 trust $70 trust
Bob Charlie Jane
$200,000
$1,000,00
trust
trust
Gateway = Bank

12. Ripple

14. Summary
• Exciting times for crypto-currencies!
• Lots of noise, scams, and dead projects
• A few interesting, strong projects
• Still small compared to Bitcoin

15. Questions?

16. References
• https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.0
• https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Category:Alternative_cryptocurrencies
• https://ripple.com/wiki/
• http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/ripple
• http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/alternatives