So, I'm liking the look of bitcoins. Secure, anonymous, decentralized. I think they'd work well as a currency for use in tor or i2p, "behind the veil" as it were.
But bitcoin isn't the only player out there. There's at least a half dozen other alternative currencies vying for adoption. Wikipedia just has crap, it's made of marketing and herp for a topic this narrow.
So tell me about them, if you'd be so kind. What makes them good? What makes bitcoin better? Which are the players and which are the underdogs?
Well, I have been interested in alternative money for some time, so I've read a bit about a few of exemples during the last few years.
Only bitcoin gave me a very good impression. Others were not interesting enough for me to remember them.
I could mention digital cash, however. It has been designed by a very famous programmer, David Chaum, known for his work in cryptography. It uses an interesting concept called blind signature, but I was never very enthusiastic about it, for it is still related to current banking system. It's just an improvement of the current system, imo.