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.

NavCoin is a community-driven digital currency built on an open-source,Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain. The project has an active development community, and places a strong emphasis on their user governance. NavCoin is developing a feature for its PoS consensus mechanism that will allow for cold staking. Users will be able to stake their coins while keeping them offline.