Which one is better?

Lets look at the main differences between Shieldcoin and Stealthcoin. The first one is that Stealthcoin runs under the X13 algorithm and Shieldcoin runs under X15. You may have been hearing about these new X11, X13, X15 algorithms and alot of people ask what they are about. These new and profitable algorithms are the big shots in the GPU mining world and were created specifically for GPU mining. So unlike Scrypt, Scrypt-N, and Scrypt-Jane which supposedly prevent ASICs by using up large amounts of memory, these new X algorithms are designed in such a way that each sub-algorithm result is passed into the next sub-algorithm. We believe that making an ASIC for this would be very difficult because the hardware would require logic gates for each algorithm. So when there are many sub algorithms (11, 13, 15) it is makes the production of a feasible ASIC much harder.

So now that we established that the next big trend is these X algorithms which one is better? The X11, X13, or X15? The X11 algorithm uses 11 hash functions from the Blake algorithm to the Keccak algorithm, which makes it very secure. Like we said earlier the result of one sub-algorithm is passed into the other. So in X11 the result of the hashing function of the Blake algorithm is passed onto the Keccak algorithm, and that is done 11 times. Pretty secure right. Now guess what X13 does, it doubles it. X13 adapts and improves X11 by adding 

Okay so we have gone a long way from a simple Sha-256 or Scrypt algorithm. Now we have X13 which is a 4 in 1 type algo. Of course that was not enough, here comes X15. X15 is the latest algorithm ,15 ROUNDS OF SCIENTIFIC HASHING  (blake, bmw, groestl, jh, keccak, skein, luffa, cubehash, shavite, simd, echo, hamsi, fugue, shabal, whirlpool). There you have it, the almighty X15, the backbone of Shieldcoin. Some may say it is overkill some may say it is evolution but both X13 and X15 are secure and efficient algorithms, yes X15 is newer but there is nothing wrong with X13. But since we are comparing Shieldcoin and Stealthcoin I have to give this one to Shieldcoin because X15 is after all an algorithm with added security.

The next thing to look at is what type of mining the coin has and whether they feature a proof of stake stage. The importance of a proof of stake stage is to allow an incentive for investors and enthusiasts to hold their coins. The trend nowadays is to include both a POW and a POS stage. In that case once the coins have been mined they will increase in value simply by holding them AND having your computer be online. The way POS works is by selecting a random node to be the “miner” and process a transaction that way. So by simply having your wallet online the amount of coins in your wallet increases. Both Shieldcoin and  Stealthcoin offer and POW and POS stage. However Stealthcoin did have recent issues with a fork which happened when the POS stage came along. The dev team is still working out the issues but my guess as to what happened was that the dev forgot to set seed nodes for the POS stage. So when POS did kick in the protocol had to choose its own random seed node which ended up causing many forks, not just one. So in essence what happened was bittrex was on one fork, while the official mining pool was on another fork, and your wallet was probably on another fork.

As a result Bittrex disabled the BTC-XST market untill the issues get resolved. The most important thing here is not to panic, if you had stealthcoins in any of your wallets make sure to put them offline. Then wait until the dev syncs up the blockchain and simply sync up your wallet to the blockchain, the coins are still going to be there. Just remember when the bittrex market comes up it will probably dump, but that should be only temporary. On the other hand, Shieldcoin had moved to the POS stage with no problems and is rising on bittrex, transactions are having no problems so once again Shieldcoin has to win this one.

Lastly what makes a great coins is it’s developers. So far we have seen no issues with Shieldcoin but does that mean it’s developers are better then Stealthcoin’s? Stealthcoin ran into an unprecedented issue and it is up for the developers to fix it ASAP. Would shieldcoin devs be able to handle such a problem? Since both coins only recently launched it is hard to tell.

I would also like to mention that Stealthcoin integrates tor into its network and uses tor to anonymize the nodes. That is a feature that Shieldcoin does not have and is unique to stealthcoin.I am not going to compare details such as block rewards, premines, block times, total coins, coin maturity, etc. because nobody knows what the perfect combination of these works best. There are so many feasible combinations of these specs that they almost seem irrelevant.

Overall from what we have seen based on the two criteria that I compared Shieldcoin and Stealthcoin above I conclude that Shieldcoin is the better choice. I do not want to put Stealthcoin down because the fact that it runs over tor is unique, but until the developers fix the fork its hard to tell Stealthcoin’s fate. Back when Darkcoin had a fork it took the devs 8 hours to fix it. So i the Stealthcoin devs can fix the issue faster then Darkcoin devs then Stealthcoin still stands a chance. Only time will tell.

Please follow us on twitter @btc_feed for the latest bitcoin related news which include bitcoin market analysis with market price prediction.