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.

PascalCoin is the first blockchain that can be deleted, and reduces the dependency of the entire blockchain history to verify transactions. It is a Proof-of-Work (PoW) cryptocurrency that places a strong emphasis on achieving the same level of scalability as credit card networks such as VISA. Pascal's architecture is based on an innovative cryptographic structure called the SafeBox. It facilitates faster transactions by storing account balances separately from the blockchain. The SafeBox only uses the last 100 blocks on the chain to update transaction history. This allows the network nodes to synchronize much faster while preserving the security of the blockchain, and reducing the computing resources needed to maintain it.
PascalCoin also enables simplified account naming to make it easier to transfer funds.