Bitcoin may be the world's best-known and most-used cryptocurrency, but it has been under intense pressure of late, having already split once just a few short weeks earlier. As expected, the currency lost quite a bit of market capitalization after the fork, but more trouble may well be on the horizon for the world's most popular cryptocurrency. According to recent reports, not only is the Bitcoin blockchain likely to see another fork ahead, some researchers are now also claiming that Bitcoin transactions are actually not as anonymous as many believe them to be. While it is unlikely that any of the controversies will actually undermine Bitcoin's position as the world's preeminent cryptocurrency, many are wondering if they can switch to other options for their online payments to maintain their privacy. This being the case, here are the 8 best Bitcoin alternative cryptocurrencies you can use:

Like Bitcoin, Ethereum is an open source, decentralized blockchain-based computing platform best known for its own cryptocurrency token called "Ether". The platform allows users to create a tradable digital token that can be used as a currency, or even a central bank that can actually issue currency. It also enables developers to build and run smart contracts and distributed applications without outside interference. Ethereum went live just a couple of years ago, but within a year of becoming operational, it severely split into two blockchains following the infamous attack on the DAO project, resulting in the creation of Ethereum (ETH) and Etherium Classic (ETC) . With most of the original Etherium backers, including founders Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood, moving to the new blockchain Ethereum (ETH), it currently has a market capitalization of over $31 billion, second only to the mighty Bitcoin, making it to a leading Bitcoin alternative.

Earlier this year, the Ethereum project announced the establishment of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, where some of the biggest names from the financial and technology industries, such as JPMorgan Chase, Bank of New York, Mellon Corporation, Microsoft, ING, UBS, British Petroleum, Santander , Credit Suisse and Wipro, joined the organization to "build and promote best practices and standards that facilitate enterprise adoption of the Ethereum protocol". Like Bitcoin, Ethereum is also a viable option for IRA investments, as investors can now hold Ethereum in retirement accounts such as traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs, 401Ks, and SEP IRAs.

Litecoin is a decentralized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency powered by open source software that was released under the MIT/X11 license in October 2011 by former Googler, Charles Lee. It was originally inspired by Bitcoin and has a lot of similarities with the world's most popular cryptocurrency, but the adoption of Segregated Witness and the Lightning Network has allowed Litecoin to reduce the block generation time to about 2.5 minutes (compared to Bitcoin's 10 minutes), and thus reducing bottlenecks and facilitating payments approximately four times faster than Bitcoin. One of the best features of Litecoin is wallet encryption, which allows users to secure their wallets in a way that allows them to see their account balance and past transactions, but requires a password to actually spend their money.