This is a nice list; I haven't heard of most of these before. I was wondering, due to all the recent press about bitcoin, if there are any competing currencies

This is a nice list; I haven't heard of most of these before. I was wondering, due to all the recent press about bitcoin, if there are any competing currencies for bitcoin, and this article helps answer that question. However, all of the resources listed seem to solve different problems than bitcoin. Several of them enable the user to create their own currency rather than provide a single new one. None of the systems/protocols/programs listed have all of the following features that bitcoin has: 1) Decentralized and solves the double-spending problem without a central server 2) Automatic and controlled production of new coins 3) The rules are governed by the software running on a majority of the computing power, and thus the rules can change if the majority of the software changes So bitcoin is unique, but there these other tools may be complementary to bitcoin.