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.

Crown is a cryptocurrency and development platform with a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism, and an emphasis on community governance. It combines some of the technical capabilities of Bitcoin and Dash. It is currently merge mined with Bitcoin, but is developing a new consensus model called Crown Atomic.

BitcoinDark is a fork of Bitcoin with a poorly defined purpose and use case. BitcoinDark is based on the InstantDEX protocol, a decentralized exchange for BitcoinDark and other cryptocurrencies supported by the project. The platform is also supposed to include a Pegged Asset Exchange (PAX) to allow users to buy and sell pegged assets – including fiat currencies, commodities, ETFs, and stocks.
BitcoinDark is a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) currency that has gained a significant market cap, but the project has failed to show how its vision will be implemented or how it will add value compared to other blockchain projects.