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.

Vitae is a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain platform that is a fork of PIVx. It is based on Blackcoin's PoS protocol. The company's marketing materials claim that its focus will be on facilitating social rewards and global prosperity, but they do not provide any specifics about what will distinguish them from other networks. It is powered by the VITAE coin.

DigiByte is a a blockchain platform that places an emphasis on security and block speed. DigiByte has one of the fastest block speeds of any public blockchain and uses an innovative consensus protocol with 5 mining algorithms. This prevents mining centralization and also minimizes the chances of security breaches. DigiByte transactions are limited in size and scope to increase speed, efficiency, and throughput.
DigiByte hopes that these innovations will provide the ideal blockchain infrastructure for a range of applications within the IoT and AI fields, that require a high degree of security and fast block speeds.