Ethereum created and controls smart contracts – and remains in control despite the many attempts to halt them. In recent times, smart contracts have gained high relevance in the cryptocurrency market. Smart contracts are regarded as the ICO gold rush of the season – with Ethereum leading as their king. So it is important to know the best smart contract platforms except Ethereum.
Smart contracts are used daily; we’re talking about life insurance policies, deeds from a house sale, and mortgages. The beauty of smart contracts is that contracts and agreements can be codified and set up to work without any third-party involvement.
In this article, we will review the best smart contract platforms that exist today.
What are Smart Contracts?
Before we go into smart contracts, let’s have an overview of what smart contracts are. Smart contracts are a part of the blockchain technology that lets users perform transactions via a robotic intermediary. It is a pile of code designed to do the work you would have done manually.
Smart contracts provide trust, automate tasks, and host decentralized applications, also known as dApps allowing for users to buy BNB easily.
Ethereum, with its market cap of about $200 billion, is the largest smart contract and dApp hub in the cryptocurrency market. However, over the years, we have seen the emergence of many other smart contracts.
6 Best Smart Contract Platforms
In no particular order, we will list the best smart contract blockchain platforms in the cryptocurrency market today
1. Ethereum
Ethereum started smart contracts and, until now, owns the lion’s share of dApps in the market. The smart contract of Ethereum is what makes it a strong competitor to Bitcoin. It is said that 80% of decentralized applications run on the Ethereum network, which has resulted in heavy congestion and contributed to the popularity of Ethereum.
There have been other projects created to run on DeFi, but no one has outperformed Ethereum. It is regarded as the world’s computer due to its ability to imitate a nearly-perfect machine.
2. EOS
EOS competes for the number one position in the smart contracts ecosystem but isn’t developed enough. Despite its underdevelopment, it is still a notable option crypto enthusiasts should know about and consider. Like a smart contract, EOS offers amazing features that are similar to those offered by Ethereum.
EOS executes its smart contracts with WASM (WebAssembly) and writes them with C++. This is a familiar software environment for new developers; onboarding new developers on EOS is easy.
3. Polkadot
Polkadot was created by one of the founders of Ethereum, Gavin Wood, a notable Parity Technologies software Development Company where he plays a major role. Considering his role as a software engineer, it is no surprise that he created Polkadot.
Web3 Foundation and other like-minded individuals looking to create a decentralized web also support the smart contract idea. It was created as a means to salvage the challenge of Ethereum’s inability to reach a secure and scalable standpoint. As a result, Polkadot has the fifth-largest market cap in the cryptocurrency market.
4. Solana
Solana was created in 2017 by engineers from different software giants, the platform is birthed from multiple ideas expressed in how well it functions compared to other smart contracts.
It was created to solve the scalability problem in the blockchain without damaging its security and decentralization. Thanks to its Proof of History consensus mechanism, Solana holds a record of performing 65,000 transactions per second. With this record, it is rated as one of the fastest smart contracts platform.
5. Ergo
Ergo stands out from other smart contracts for many reasons, one of which is that it doesn’t charge gas fees. Instead, the platform is designed to process complex contracts, although not listed on major crypto exchanges. As a result, Ergo still has a long (and hard) way to build its profile compared to other smart contracts.
6. Alogorand
Algorand is famous for being used by developers that are still trying to get the hang of the cryptocurrency market, thanks to Clarity, one of its programming languages. The platform promises speed, low cost, scalability, and transparency – like every other smart contract. One of the goals of Algorand is to make smart contract blockchain language accessible to everyone.
While these six smart contracts are the major ones we have decided to highlight, several exist in the cryptocurrency market. Experts also project that more smart contracts will be developed in the coming years to compete with existing ones and probably outshine them.
Smart contracts are only just beginning, and we have only seen the tip of the iceberg. Considering that transactions are becoming more and more expensive, there is a huge demand for good smart contract blockchain platforms.