What makes this coin better than all the other alts? Does it have something special going for it?
The individual advances of Oracle (name under consideration) are quite numerous, but i can give you one i am currently revising :-
You have seen how anyone can issue assets on most blockchain, which mostly tend to be worthless? Assets issued in Oracle can be converted back to oracles, meaning they are actually part of the supply. Value gained by assets is value gained by the network as a whole, and value gained by oracle is value for it's assets too.
In terms of technical advances, quite a lot has been done, but what really makes a crypto-currency is adoption, there are many very good attempts out there but that failed because of adoption., That is the area i plan to push hardest, by making everything easier from a user point of view, great functionality, and relentless marketing, not just in the launch phase, but all throughout, adoption is a priority.
The scope of the project is huge, and leveraging cross-chain functionality, financial instruments and markets should draw in more users. Security and privacy will be beyond standard with strict security around the codebase.