Bitcoin Gold (BTG) is a cryptocurrency that began in 2017 as a hard fork of the Bitcoin blockchain. BTG was created to reduce the monopolizing power of dedicated ASIC mining operations within the original Bitcoin network. Bitcoin Gold mining can be done by anyone with a standard computer and provides greater decentralization to the system. The hard fork that created BTG was meant to combat the disproportionate influence and competitive advantage of professional miners.

Digix is digital gold on the blockchain. By combining the historical stability of a valuable physical asset with the advantages of a distributed ledger, Digix allows users to benefit from the advantages of both commodities and digital tokens.
Digix has an innovative Proof of Asset (PoA) protocol that allows it it tokenize a physical asset. The PoA protocol tracks an asset through its chain of custody, and enables anyone to verify its existence without an intermediary. Since every DGX = 1 Gram of gold, their platform can be used as a secure and transparent digital marketplace for gold.
Digix is also behind DigixDAO, a platform that allows users to contribute to building a blockchain-based digital gold payment system. They hope to create a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that will participate in creating this platform. Instead of issuing shares, the organization will be run by DigixDAO token holders.

ZCoin is a privacy focused cryptocurrency built on Ethereum. The ZCoin protocol enables anonymous transactions with cryptography that utilizes Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKP). ZCoin increases privacy on their network by using a coin-mixer contract that wraps transactions in a serial number and destroying wrapped coins once they have been redeemed.
Zcoin was the first cryptocurrency to use a Merkle Tree Proof (MTP) as its proof of work algorithm. Merkle Tree Proofs are an innovative solution to achieving network consensus, and can increase transaction time while reducing the centralizing tendency of ASIC mining.