Blockchain. This fad word has been around for quite some time now. But, wait. What’s a blockchain? And what are the top 10 blockchains that’ll rule 2023? Let’s find out!
A blockchain is a technology initiated to record transactions of cryptocurrency. This was later extrapolated by Vitalik to create Ethereum, a general-purpose blockchain. Ethereum has been utilized to make various applications of decentral nature.
What’s decentral nature?
A decentral nature (of an application) is when you store your data regarding identity, banking, passwords, and other miscellaneous information (photos, videos, audio, messages) with yourself.
It’s a secure system with no third party to interject and have your information for any purpose.
How are blockchains secure? Through encryption.
Blockchains use the SHA-256 encryption method. Employing the SHA-256 protocol, they create a 256-character string that locks the block of transactions at the end.
Further, the encryption of two blocks is connected. In the chain, this keeps going on and on. Thus, the name ‘Blockchain’ as the blocks are chained together.
The TOP 10 Blockchains for 2023
We’ve listed the top 10 blockchains that will rule 2023, so buckle your seats and know why these ten will reign the Web3 universe.
Ethereum
At #1 We have Ethereum. It is not a surprise that it is on the list, but a fact. Ethereum deserves a place, and why not!
Vitaliks’ brainchild is not just user-friendly and easy to operate but also constantly evolving to become better. A continuous endeavor to be the best blockchain for developers and coders alike.
As of September 2022, Ethereum went through the Merge which was the merging of the two blockchains running. The goal of the Merge was to reduce energy consumption by 98%
It’s also made it more secure, faster, and easier for validators or stakers. Deploying smart contracts and creating DApps from this platform is as simple as making the perfect cup of brew in the morning!
Polygon
Polygon does deserve a shout-out for all the great tools and features it brings. The ability to buy-sell-trade MATIC, being EMV compatible, consisting of a second layer, while ensuring it can handle many transactions instantly.
Polygon is easy for developers and users. It also assures security with lower transaction fees. The availability and interoperability of the blockchain are advantageous along with some other tools such as Polygon Avail, Polygon Edge, Nightfall, and Miden.
Not to mention the developer tools that are present to aid developers and coders help to build permissionless public sidechains. The sidechains increase the capability of supporting many protocols.
Solana
Founded in 2017, Solana is a blockchain platform made to have a faster-decentralized web for apps. Solana is an open-source blockchain that enables developers to create apps for games, finance, music, and more!
Moreover, the Transactions Per Second (TPS) in Solana is ~400 milliseconds to mine a block. It carries a load of 50,000 – 60,000 transactions in a second. That is much higher than Ethereum and Polygon.
While the average gas fee elsewhere is at least $0.001, Solana is fast and affordable at $0.00025 on average for a transaction.
In addition to these features, Solanas’ habitat is more expansive than Ethereum’s. It can easily handle 3x more than the ETH blockchain.
Stellar
If you are interested in blockchains for decentralized finance, Stellar is the right blockchain for you!
The Stellarverse provides developers with SDKs and APIs that help blockchains to transform the financial domain in the digital ledger space.
What’s more, you can employ Stellar in your Defi apps that ensure the transactions of crypto tokens, NFTs and micropayment services.
Stellar’s in-built asset exchanges allow one to exchange their crypto tokens against forex or stablecoins. The best part about these DEXes is the absence of mediators and high security.
Cardano
Car-Da-No. This blockchain is famous for its evolution through a research approach. Many computer scientists have come together in collaboration to create a blockchain that’s scalable, open-source, and sustainable.
Moreover, Cardano’s system is designed with a secure functional language – Haskell. Cardanos‘ blockchain environment supports programs containing pure functions, is secure with the Proof-of-Stake consensus, and is energy efficient.
Although Cardano has made a name for the approach it has towards blockchain tech, one thing developers have to beware of is the language, library, and IDE. Being developed by a peer-research team, Cardano uses its language – Haskell, and has a Haskell library!
In addition, it has a dedicated tool for creating Smart Contracts. Plutus and the Plutus Playground. Plutus is specially built to create smart contracts in the Cardano environment.
TRON
TRON believes in decentralizing the web. The blockchain plans to achieve this by having a Tron Virtual Machine that’s Turing complete. The VM aids developers and coders build a web by providing a custom-built blockchain for everyone.
The blockchain claims to be more efficient, convenient, stable, secure, and scalable. The smart contracts on the blockchain are built using Solidity and are EVM-compatible.
Moreover, deploying smart contracts don’t consume gas fee or TRX. Anyone can deploy a smart contract for free.
Intending to decentralize, the blockchain has a consensus of DPoS: Designated Proof-of-Stake protocol. The consensus delegates the validation of a block to 27 chosen stakers at random. Thus, maintaining a strict consensus across the TRON ecosystem.
Further, the blockchains’ 3-layer architecture constitutes a storage layer, a core layer, and an application layer.
The two TRON tokens TRC-10 & TRX as cryptocurrency have a market value and get used in decentralized exchanges.
Hyperledger Fabric
The Linux Foundation found the Hyperledger blockchain ecosystem in 2015.
Consequently, Hyperledger Fabric is one of the many blockchains within the Hyperledger ecosystem. So, it’s worth questioning, if there are many blockchains, why is Hyperledger Fabric chosen among all of them?
This blockchain network is a solitary network from Hyperledger that is private and permissioned – unlike other blockchains where random people get to join the network, stake tokens, validate blocks and transfer information or currency across the platform.
Hyperledger Fabric favors users to change the consensus as per need. The consensus gets determined during the deployment of a smart contract and later changes as per requirement.
Chaincode gets used to create smart contracts. So, at the time of writing, only Go, Node.js, and Java chaincode get employed to design custom contracts between parties.
Hyperledger Fabric ensures the privacy of information within a blockchain ecosystem. Thus, B2B markets dealing with consumer data can opt for this blockchain.
Making Channels within the blockchain allows multiple parties to deal with many transactions simultaneously. It permits a cohort of people to maintain a separate ledger of transactions.
Avalanche
Having the ability and capacity to conduct almost 200,000+ transactions per second, Avalanche is known to be the fastest blockchain in the web3 world today.
This blockchain is employed to build Solidity-compatible dApps using Solidity, the Remix IDE, and Open Zeppelin. The blockchain attains the name and fame of being fast due to the subnet approach. There are multiple subnets where the blocks are connected.
The presence of subnets lowers the distribution load across the network. In addition to the subnets, multiple nodes run on the mainnet with the Proof-of-Stake consensus.
DeFi-based blockchains adopt Avalance due to the small TPS and security it provides. Avalanche is an energy-efficient and CPU-optimized blockchain for a node to run from home.
In Avalanche, developers build and deploy smart contracts on the C-chain (contract chain). The C-chain is a specialized chain for smart contracts within DeFi applications. The contracts created are Metamask compatible and run on a go-Ethereum fork known as Coreth.
Tezos
The Tezos blockchain aims for a transparent user-centric blockchain environment. Tezos is an open-source blockchain that believes in building evolvable applications.
Possessing the native token Tez enables developers and users to interact with the Tezo blockchain.
Developers use Ligo (language) to create smart contracts. Templates are present to create smart contracts for fungible tokens and NFTs within the blockchain.
Tezos also use Archetype, a domain-specific language to ensure the security of smart contracts on the Tezos blockchain.
BNB Chain Blockchain
This De-Fi-oriented blockchain provides its native tokens: BNB, and is famous for various De-Fi operations. The BNB coin powers the blockchain ecosystem.
Some of the Web3 finance operations from Binance are trading of crypto coins, borrowing, and lending services, and exchange of tokens at the Binance DEX, and remember BNB is the biggest marketplace for NFTs and collections.
Further, the Binance Market provides crucial insights apart from a space to buy, trade, and sell your cryptocurrencies. BNB has already leveraged the Defi domain to dominate the web3 space. BNB is a one-stop blockchain for all web3 finance operations.
