Ethereum Classic is the original protocol of Ethereum. As a result of the massive hack on the Ethereum-based DAO, in which around 14% of all ETH in circulation were stolen, a hard fork was proposed to return the stolen funds to their owners. This caused an ideological split revolving around the question of changing previous transactions in the blockchain. Some Ethereum holders rejected the hard fork, and decided to keep using the original protocol, based on the principle that the blockchain is immutable, and cannot be changed.

Groestlcoin is a blockchain payment protocol with a number of technical innovations and an active developer community. Groestlcoin was the first coin that activated SegWit and supports the Lightning Network. Transaction fees are very low and it claims to have instant payments. It is also one of the only coins that can be sent over SMS.
Groestlcoin's active developer community has made the payment protocol very adaptable, and it a popular coin among many crypto investors. Groestlcoin has an ASIC resistant Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism.

Bitcoin Diamond is a hardfork of Bitcoin that was created in 2017. Although the network's code preserves much of Bitcoin's original features, it aims to improve transaction speeds by implementing the Lightning network and increasing the storage capabilities of each block. The Lightning Network is a second layer payment protocol that works on the Bitcoin blockchain and is designed to place a large portion of the transaction data outside of the blockchain.