Spectrecoin is the privacy focused crypto, it features an energy-efficient proof of stake algorithm which provides fast transaction confirmations, wth integrated Tor+OBFS4 for network privacy.
Current market cap: $67,531,531 USD / 5,760 BTC
Price per coin: $2.97 / 0,00025585 BTC a pop
Current markets: mainly Cryptopia and Livecoin
Consensus: Proof of Stake 3.0
Ring signatures
Stealth and regular addresses
A minimum of 5% yearly interest
Block time: 60 seconds
Tech overview and comparison
What sets XSPEC apart from e.g. Monero, Zcash etc?
Okay, so the two things that excite me most is the ability for stealth staking and the fully integrated Tor+OBFS4 layer. Other things like ring signatures and stealth addresses are of course very nice safety features, but this is nothing new (e.g. Monero and Zcash both use ring sigs, Monero also uses stealth addresses).
So Spectre uses proof of stake as a method of consensus, which is a much more energy-friendly method to do verifications on the blockchain. Individuals don't mine, they stake based on the amount of XSPEC in their wallet which in turn decides the likelihood of receiving the block reward. Monero is an amazing coin and valued so highly for a reason, but the fact that it uses proof of work is still quite problematic as it simply wastes tons of energy.
Stealth staking
As of yet, stealth staking is in development. Version 2.0 will feature default stealth staking (set to launch Q2 this year). This is huge. First of all, to my knowledge there is no other privacy coin that has this possibility. Stealth staking means that an individual's wallet information will remain anonymous even if one is using the contents to stake. This used to be quite a hurdle for all PoS coins out there, and of course brings into question the true privacy of a privacy coin if individuals cant stake their coins anonymously.
Tor+OBFS4 integration
I'll admit, at first I had to google the OBFS4 part. What this basically means though, is that IP activity is untraceable by means of the Tor network, which means that the coin can safely be used in countries that tend to ban traffic from and to certain IP's (China, Russia). Its safe to say these are big markets, where internet freedom will be greatly appreciated. Thus since Spectre runs over the Tor network, IP addresses are safely obfuscated. If this would not be the case, you could get into some nasty problems with service providers monitoring your internet traffic to determine the origin of your transaction. With net neutrality you can imagine that this is a problem more than ever.
Current standings
As mentioned above, the current market cap is around 60mill. This is incredibly low, especially when taking into consideration all the impressive tech and its unique contributions. The roadmap is worth a read, and it must be a more-than-good year if everything is achieved. They already have one of the better wallets that I have seen so far, with an integrated anonymous chat.
The lead developer, jbg, is very open to any kind of input and is happy to share any information about the entire project. Just ask him in the slack channel.
Oh yeah, just to mention it again, it is currently the fifth best returning ICO ever, just behind Ethereum. So if you're only in for the money you are definitely not too late yet, although hopefully you'd also be in for the promising tech.
Some questions I frequently ran into
Q: 'Its a privacy coin, but it has a richlist? What gives?'
A: Yes there's a richlist, but this has been obsolete for quite some time now. Spectre was created based on ShadowCash which used to have no ring signatures. Stealth transactions have been supported for a long time now, and will become the default option in v2.0.
/u/Trainasauruswrecks explained this quite nicely
Q: 'If it's so great, why isn't it at e.g. > 200M yet?'
A: Of course there can be many reasons why this is, first of all its a relatively new coin and this entire market is in its baby shoes. Personally, I think a big part of this also comes from the fact that it appeared to me that jbg (lead developer) prioritized the tech much more than the marketing.
Of course this is not a terrible attribute in a developer, but you can have a fantastic product which still nobody will adopt if they don't know about it. This may have been my only worry up until recently, since it's become quite clear that he listened to supporters in the Slack channel as there is clearly someone marketing going on since not too long ago. The website just got a big overhaul and the Twitter account is clearly more active.
Q: 'why is there no information about the team on the website, seems sketchy?'
A: No idea why this is asked regularly, but obviously creators of a privacy coin do not want their faces on the internet associated with tech that allows you to e.g. circumvent Chinese and Russian internet laws.