Contrasting five more cryptocurrencies:

PEERCOIN
Created in 2012; One of the oldest altcoins
The first implementation of  Proof-of-Stake
Highly energy efficient minting process
A 1% annual reward for coins held longer than 30 days

DASH
Keep your payments private so nobody can track you
Instant payments through transaction locking with InstantX
Changed name from Darkcoin in 2015
Uses a proof-of-work hashing algorithm called X11

GRIDCOIN
Gridcoin users are helping to advance scientific research
Distributed by Proof-of-Research to contributers on BOINC projects
The Gridcoin client has an inbuilt decentralized voting system.
Pioneered the BOINC project whitelist, to secure the network

ZOOZ
Used to pay for transportation on the ridesharing network, La’Zooz
Distributed to participants via Proof-of-Travel
A token distributed on both the Counterparty and Omni Protocols
The La’Zooz team won the 2014 Mastercoin Hackathon

ETHER
Used to build & purchase services on the Ethereum platform
An alpha release of Ethereum, called Frontier, was launched in 2015
Uses a mining algorithm called EtHash
Used to raise over $18m via crowd sale in 2014