Great comparison of public blockchain technologies! (part 1)

EthereumAnd Binance And Cardano There is one thing in common: behind each of these names hides a generic blockchain technology. In fact, blockchain technology is the basic building block for cryptocurrencies, but also for other use cases that take advantage of the intrinsic properties of a public blockchain: a public record of transactions, and transaction security by exchanges between crypto and binary currencies. Without a trusted third party.

View our comparison criteria

While Ethereum has built a dominant market position for public blockchain technologies since 2015, competition has never been fierce with other players who have introduced new features and increased performance as the blockchain ecosystem seeks to spread use cases more broadly. So, who are these actors who want to invent the new public blockchain standard?

To find out, in this analytical article we give you an overview of the various public blockchain technologies in the market. To do this, we have chosen the criteria below, and these will allow us to distinguish the distinct elements of the blockchain that we will examine.

1. judgment : What is the user block validation consensus? (Proof of Work, Proof of Stake, Delegated Proof of Stake, etc…)
2. performance : How many transactions per second can be supported on the network?
3. social communication : How many active nodes? What is the developer community behind the technology?
4. smart contracts : Does technology enable smart contracts to be deployed?
5. Use cases : What use cases is the technology used for?

Ethereum

Ethereum was founded in 2015 by Vitalik Buterin And Joseph LubinTwo of the key figures now in the blockchain and cryptocurrency ecosystem. Ethereum is a decentralized and open source public blockchain technology and the cryptocurrency associated with it is Ether (ETH).

1. judgment : The block validation consensus currently in use on Ethereum is consensus proof of work (Proof of Work), which consumes a lot of energy, this consensus should be replaced by Proof of Stake (Proof of Stake) in ethereum version 2.0 Its development we follow closely on cointribune.
2. performance Approx.: Ethereum blockchain supported 15 transactions per second. Version 2.0 should allow for a very significant improvement of this property with potential levels exceeding 100,000 transactions per second.
3. social communication : There are nearly 8000 active nodes on the Ethereum network With a very large community of developers doing cryptography, creating decentralized applications and smart contracts on the network.
4. smart contracts The Ethereum network allows developers to create decentralized smart contracts, applications, and tokens. There is a specific programming language on Ethereum called Turing Complete.
5. Use cases There are many use cases for Ethereum blockchain technology, according to a study Gartner, The majority of use cases for the blockchain ecosystem use the Ethereum network. In particular, technology has made it possible to support ICO phenomenon in 2017 By allowing tokens to be generated based on ERC-20 . Standard. Ethereum also supports a phenomenon NFT With the first dating app dating back to 2017 with Crypto Kitties that has extended to the world of art, sports and trade shows since the beginning of 2021. Finally, the phenomenon of Crypto Kitties has emerged. challenge Ethereum is widely backed by a large number of network-based smart contracts co-founded by Vitalik Buterin.

Total public blockchain maturity level of Ethereum 1.0: 3.4 / 5

As you understand, Ethereum is one of the main pillars of the blockchain ecosystem, and it is undoubtedly the most widely used network for creating and developing use cases for decentralized applications and smart contracts. However, as stated in the introduction, the competition is tough, and that’s what we’ll find out now.

Binance

Having become the main platform for buying and selling cryptocurrencies since its inception in July 2017, after the ICO that made it possible to issue the first Binance Coins (BNB). Binance and its CEO, Changpeng Zhao, aka CZ, launched in April 2019 BinanceChain, a public blockchain technology developed by Binance in order to free themselves from the Ethereum network that enabled them to implement their own ICO. The Binance Chain was developed to maximize performance through ultra-fast transactions. Parallel to the Binance Chain, it is SmartChain Binance That intervenes to enable the creation of smart contracts.

1. judgment : Block Validation Consensus on Binance Smart Chain of Type proof of stake (Proof of stake). Thus BNB participants can participate in the validation of the blocks and thus receive a portion of the transaction fee upon presentation of valid blocks.
2. performance : The SmartChain Binance supports medium 60 transactions per secondwhich is a level above Ethereum thanks to the block validation consensus.
3. social communication : There are nearly 40 DApps developed On the Binance Smart Chain, the app is still far from over 650 active Dapps on Ethereum, but it’s a great start for Binance, which is grouping together around its network developers who are attracted by fast transactions and low transaction fees.
4. smart contracts The Binance Smart Chain, as its name suggests, allows the developer to create smart contracts. Additionally, an important point to note is that Ethereum smart contracts are also backed by the Binance Smart Chain.
5. Use cases : Applications developed on BSC mainly target the DeFi sector. We can mention in particular Pancake Swap, an AMM platform from BSC, but also Venus, similar to DeFi-type protocols. complex where avi. If the standard for creating tokens on the Ethereum blockchain is ERC-20, in BSC, this time it is the BEP-20 standard.

Binance Smart Chain Public Blockchain Overall Maturity Level: 3.6/5

Thus, Binance is emerging with its smart chain as an alternative to the DeFi ecosystem, in particular in order to overcome the limits of scalability and excessive transaction costs.

Cardano

The Cardano project started in 2015, and was specially supported by Charles Hoskinson who was part of the founding team of Ethereum. Cardano is a project open source Who wants to constantly improve by asking researchers specializing in blockchain technologies, cryptography, etc… to give their opinions on Cardano’s roadmap for its improvement. In early 2017, ICO achieved made it possible to collect more than $62 million To fund the project through tokens linked to the named network ADA. Thus, the Cardano project aims to offer a decentralized blockchain network that allows the creation and maintenance of large-scale smart contracts thanks to an adapted governance system. Continuing the philosophy of transparency inherent in public blockchain technologies, the roadmap for the progress of the developer teams working on the project is constantly updated.

1. judgment : The researchers and developers who worked on the project chose proof of stake Proof of Stake – as consensus mode for block validation. They developed a specific protocol called “Ouroboros” In particular, it relies on the mathematical mechanisms that make it possible to ensure that the network develops correctly as long as 51% of the connected ADA holders are owned by honest validators.
2. performance : At the time of its launch in 2017, the Cardano blockchain was capable of processing 257 transactions per secondIn 2020, Charles Hoskinson published a document showing that with the deployment of a Type II solution, Cardano could be able to scale up to 1 million transactions per second.
3. social communication : Cardano has managed to develop a community of researchers and scientists very committed to the project. the society IOHK composed by Charles Hoskinson It is the real driving force behind web development around 250 people working full time on the project.
4. smart contracts : Cardano’s current development stage “Goguen” is dedicated to the development of Smart Contract Features On the web. The goal is to make smart contract creation accessible to the financial sector, particularly through accessible creation tools that do not require a significant background in IT development.
5. Use cases The Cardano network is still in development, and it doesn’t have a very large number of active use cases. However, the current stage should make it possible to develop the use of smart contracts in the finance sector, but also to create cryptocurrencies as well as non-fungible tokens.

Cardano public blockchain overall maturity level: 3.2/5

Thus, Cardano is a really well-advanced public blockchain project that is constantly improving thanks to the many thought leaders who are contributing to it. The transparency regarding the different phases of the project and the community surrounding Cardano makes it a network to follow even if it does not yet have any active use cases apart from the ADA cryptocurrency.

Conclusion: The “third generation” blockchain is attacking Ethereum

We can already distinguish between Bitcoin which defines the first generation of a blockchain network that allows the creation of a unique exchangeable cryptocurrency on a decentralized network without a governing body, and the second generation represents the arrival of smart contracts and Dapps with Ethereum. The third generations of public blockchain networks such as the Binance smart chain and Cardano that we observed in the comparison aim to increase the scalability of blockchain networks to allow for a wider deployment. To deal with these attacks, Ethereum is currently developing a 2.0 version of its network, and the question now is whether this will arrive in time or whether another public blockchain technology will take over. Go to the next article to add Ripple, Iota, Polkadot and Cosmo technologies!

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