Ethereum was the first smart contract blockchain that gave birth to a whole new world of crypto such as tokens, dApps (decentralized applications), and DeFi.
However, due to its shortcomings (high transaction fees and slow transaction confirmation times) users have started moving to other chains such as Binance Smart Chain (BSC).
In this post, I will be sharing with you 5 Ethereum alternative chains I believe are worth giving a close look at, as their growth is just starting.
5 Ethereum alternative chains you should keep your eyes on:
Solana
Polkadot
Avalanche
Cardano
Bitcoin Cash
1. Solana
Solana is a highly scalable and fast smart contract blockchain that enables developers to build and manage decentralized applications (dApp).
Similar to Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain (BSC), Solana makes it possible for developers to build and deploy DeFi applications, smart contracts, and tokens.
However, unlike Ethereum, Solana is fast, scalable, and have very low (almost non-existent) transaction fees.
More so, Solana is far faster and cheaper than BSC. And unlike BSC, it is decentralized and censorship-resistant.
The Solana network is acclaimed to be capable of performing 50, 000 transactions per second (TPS) and the fees are as low as $0.00005.
Thus effectively combining speed and low fees without sacrificing security and censorship resistance.
More projects are building on Solana every day and this is already reflecting on the price of the native cryptocurrency, the SOL coin.
Some notable projects that I personally fancy and use for trading and farming are Serum (SRM), Raydium (RAY), and SolFarm.
2. Polkadot
Polkadot is the blockchain network that aims to connect all other blockchains so that data from one chain can be easily sent and received among all other chains seamlessly.
Aside from blockchain interoperability, security, scalability, and low transaction fees are the other strengths of Polkadot which makes it a worthy challenger and competitor to Ethereum and the other chains.
Polkadot is claimed to be able to process up to 166, 666 transactions per second (TPS) which is about 8,333 times faster than Ethereum's 15-20 tps.
Some interesting projects building on Polkadot Centrifuge, Darwinia, Kusama, Akropolis, Birfrost Finance, etc.
I have not done anything like farming on Polkadot so far, so my experience on that chain is limited.
But I have been following its development and progress for some time now and I have a detailed overview of the blockchain network for you to review.
3. Avalanche
Avalanche prides itself as the "internet of finance" and an open-source platform for launching highly decentralized applications (dApps).
The blockchain network is purpose-built for decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.
Like its other brothers on this list, Avalanche is fully compatible with Ethereum assets, apps, and tools.
This means that whatever you have on Ethereum can be easily ported to Avalanche, thus making it easy for developers to move to Avalance from Ethereum if they want to.
Moreso, Avalanche offers faster speeds (up to 4000 tps), higher throughput, and lower fees (below 10 cents - about $0.036896 or less) and these fees are burned (destroyed forever).
Thus effectively reducing the total supply and making AVAX a deflationary coin.
Some interesting projects building on Avalance includes Pangolin (DEX) and Snowball (yield aggregator).
4. Cardano
I used to take Cardano as the "professors blockchain' due to their abstract and high-sounding language and zero working product.
That changed when projects building on Cardano started to surface, even though they're still far from producing a "working" product.
According to the project's team, Cardano is a blockchain network that is founded on peer-reviewed research and developed through evidence-based methods.
In other words, the development of Cardona is based on empirical research and tailored towards providing solutions to real-life problems of blockchain security, scalability, decentralization, and high transaction fees.
The only project I know of building on Cardano so far is Revuto - a non-custodial subscriptions payment management platform.
There are no yield farming or other DeFi applications on Cardano yet, which makes things there dull and less interesting for now.
So, for now, I will only be watching and continue monitoring developments on that chain.
5. Bitcoin Cash
Bitcoin Cash made it to this list because of the heavy development going on the network and how committed the community is to build a Bitcoin network that Satoshi would be proud of.
Originally Bitcoin has no smart contract capability and so does Bitcoin Cash which is a fork of Bitcoin.
However, that is changing fast with the introduction of SmartBCH.
SmartBCH (Smart Bitcoin Cash) is a sidechain for Bitcoin Cash with the aim of bringing smart contract capabilities and DeFi to the Bitcoin Cash network.
It is compatible with Ethereum's EVM and Web3 API and provides fast transaction speeds and low fees without compromising security and decentralization.
So far, SmartBCH is still in testing phases and is expected to be fully functional sometime whin Q2 to Q3 2021. Ethereum DeFi applications will be able to seamlessly port to Bitcoin Cash and operate with low transaction fees.
As you may also already know, our own token -CST- is based on the Bitcoin Cash network and we can't wait to be able to start building dApps on Bitcoin Cash that utilises CST.
The different token standards of the 5 chains discussed above.
Just as we have ERC-20 and BEP-20 for tokens created on Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain respectively, the following are the token standard for the above 5 chains.
Tokens created on the Solana blockchain are called: SPL tokens
Tokens created on the Polkadot blockchain are called: DOT tokens
Tokens created on the Avalanche blockchain are called: ARC-20 tokens
Tokens created on the Bitcoin Cash blockchain are called: SLP tokens
I hope this expands your understanding of the various chains.
Conclusion
Ethereum compromised scalability and low fees for security and decentralization. BSC came in to solve these problems, but at the expense of decentralization and questionable security.
These 5 chains are able to achieve scalability, security, decentralization, and low transaction fees without making compromises which makes them superior to both Ethereum and BSC.
When people realize they don't need to sacrifice security and decentralization for low fees and scalability, even BSC will start losing users to some of these chains.
Which is your favourite chain for DeFi?
I think next big network chain will be Sol. But still sol network have some issue. Now BSC is best in my opinion.