Monero is a decentralized public ledger protocol whose focus is on increased privacy. It was created in 2014, with the goal of establishing a privacy focused blockchain that would allow users to send and receive transactions anonymously, and not pseudo-anonymously, like Bitcoin.
Monero uses an obfuscated public ledger that prevents anyone from determining the source, destination, or amount of payments. Unlike many other cryptocurrencies, payments and account balances on Monero remain entirely hidden. This is one reason that XMR, the Monero currency, has attracted some users that are involved with illicit activities.
Monero uses a Proof of Work consensus mechanism that requires less computing power from miners than Bitcoin does. Because of this, mining Monero has become an alternative source of revenue for some websites and apps. .

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ZCash is a privacy focused cryptocurrency protocol that enables users to make transactions anonymously. Users to hide the sender, receiver, and amount of every transaction. ZCash has several high profile advisers and investors, including: Roger Ver, Gavin Andresen, and Vitalik Buterin.
ZCash has a fixed supply of 21 million coins; 20% of which will be allocated as a founders reward that is split between investors and developers. This founders reward has been the subject of controversy and has led to a fork of the ZCash protocol.

TurtleCoin is a privacy-focused coin with a short block time. It was created by two developers that call themselves Bebop and Rocksteady. Their goal was to create a cryptocurrency that was focused on community development and did not require a large ICO. Turtlecoin has a short block time of only 30 seconds, and has many of the same privacy features as Monero (XMR). TurtleCoin has a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism.