During the May holiday break I finally got the time to have a closer look at the existing blockchain platforms. I have already mentioned that when talking about smart contracts businessmen and ICO-people usually refer to the Ethereum smart contracts. Truth be told Ethereum became the default blockchain for ico just because it was the first platform and it triggered the chain reaction: capitalization, distribution, training for developers, technological development etc.
We are witnessing the blockchain technology being born. And the labours are hard. Ethereum gave everyone the possibility to try the decentralized logic having a rather low learning curve. But in return we got tremendous fees, speed limitations, inflated hardware requirements and tools that leave much to be desired. As for the smart contracts I do not consider Ethereum to be that convenient though it is a broad based test bench for checking the predictions and proving the concepts.
It is evident that the majority of these concepts will need new platforms. And I asked myself: which platform would I prefer for a project based on decentralized logic? Here is my short-list:
- Nem
- Cardano
- Graphene
- Exonum
- Hyperledger
- Neo
- Waves
- Stellar
NEM
This is a truly great stuff! And what is the most important it is production ready. It uses harvesting instead of mining, it has POI - Proof-Of-Importance, which is linked to the monthly turnover and the account activity (the reputation of each node is based on Eigentrust++).
Here we have off-chain smart contracts, the nodes create API and quite a rich one at the first glance. The node can be used both as a server and as a client. It enables the creation of a private blockchain with up to 3000 tps. Capitalization of a platform is $3.7 billion, the daily turnover is $24 million and the total amount of XEM coins is 9 billion.
Cardano.
This is a DPoS-blockchain that is developed by a very strong team (academic open source). They implement the concept of data layer and chain-code layer separation CSL/CCL (Settlement/Computation). There is an on-chain voting on changes (as Bitcoin BIP and Ethereum ERC). Smart contracts are slated for 2018 Q4 and will be based on Plutus. The enterprise version is under development. Current speed of a main network is about 250 tps. Capitalization is $ 9.7 billion, daily turnover – $ 326 million, total amount of ADA coins – 25 billion.
Graphene.
This is a powerful open source blockchain framework with quite a good speed, up to 100k tps. It is used by the Microsoft Azure Blockchain Services. It was launched in 2013 and now has a considerable project list.
Graphene has several implementations:
Bitshares is a financial and e-commerce blockchain. The deployment of a user code needs an approval and proceeds with a regular hard fork. There are a lot of built-in functions such as an easy launch of token backed by cryptocurrency and even the embedded support of a referral program. The fees are low and some transactions can be free. There are no smart contracts.
EOS is a blockchain supporting smart contracts based on sockets + JSON RPC. The fees are low. It utilizes dPoS-consensus. Webassembly (Rust, C, C++) is used for smart contracts. Capitalization is $14 billion, daily turnover – $1.9 billion, total amount of EOS coins – 832 billion.
Steem is a blockchain for supporting and rewarding clients who are generating content. Capitalization is $1 billion, daily turnover – $13 million, total amount of STEEM coins – 832 billion.
Exonum.
This is a project of a mining company Bitfury. Exonum is an open source framework for a private blockchain anchoring on Bitcoin. Speed of a platform is up to 5000 tps. Instead of Proof-Of- the platform utilizes its own math version of BFT because the blockchain is private and has a limited number of nodes. The system is written in Rust that is quite similar to C++ but is safer. Rust is also used for the smart contracts. The company is strong, the cases they have are high-profile, e.g. land registry in Georgia and in the Ukraine. It is supposed to be implemented by the Russian Federal Agency for State Registration, Cadastre, and Cartography.
[ to be continued ]