Top Blockchain Platforms to explore in 2021

Blockchain technology seems to be picking up speed nowadays. The technology that emerged in 2009 as Bitcoin has now become a mainstream technology. Blockchain has applications in various industries, including healthcare, supply chain, logistics, legal and more. Blockchain applications are designed and developed to make business processes more efficient and transparent.

As organizations have started to experiment with blockchain’s potential by developing blockchain apps, the demand for blockchain platforms is off the charts. One of the surveys reveals that the global blockchain market size is expected to grow from USD 3.0 billion in 2020 to USD 39.7 billion in 2025, at a CAGR of 67.3% during 2020-2025. Therefore, the need for blockchain platforms is evergrowing to build the blockchain-enabled ecosystem securely and quickly. 

So, we have created a list of some of the best blockchain platforms that you can explore in 2021 to help organizations bring more transparency and efficiency into their business ecosystem.

Let us first explain how is our current listing for 2021 different from the previous one.

We have prepared a list of top blockchain platforms to explore in 2021 with our hands-on experience on these platforms. Our blockchain development team has worked on all of the below platforms. We have built projects and created PoC on different platforms and identified them based on their efficiency, scalability and security.

Here is a list of the top blockchain platforms to explore in 2021

1. Tezos
2. Stellar
3. Hyperledger Fabric
4. Hyperledger Sawtooth
5. EOS
6. Openchain
7. Corda
8. Tron
9. Hedera Hashpraph
10. Ethereum

1. Tezos

Tezos is an open-source and decentralized blockchain network that can perform peer-to-peer transactions and deploy smart contracts. It has a modular architecture and formal upgrade mechanism that allows its network to facilitate formal verification.

Founded by Arthur Breitman and Kathleen Breitman, Tezos is designed to offer the safety and code correctness needed for digital assets and high-value use cases. It is a decentralized blockchain platform that is self-governing.

Tezos is a smart contract and dApp platform, just like Ethereum, Waves, Neo, but its self-amending cryptographic mechanism makes it different from other platforms.

Following are some of the features of the Tezos platform that distinguish it from other platforms:

• Self-amendment Protocol
• Delegated Proof of Stake Consensus Mechanism
• On-Chain Governance
• Smart Contracts and Formal Verification

2. Stellar

Stellar is an open blockchain network that allows the storing and moving of money. It facilitates you to create, trade and send digital representations of all forms of money, for example, dollars, bitcoin, pesos and a lot more.

Over 69% of banks are currently experimenting with blockchain technology to make their services transparent, seamless, and secure. Stellar is one of the most scalable and significant blockchain platforms that can help build secure and fast fintech applications, tokens and digital assets representing financial assets.

It is an open-source network for payments and currencies. It has no owner; if it has anything, it is owned by the public. It can handle millions of transactions every day. Like Ethereum and Bitcoin, Stellar depends on the blockchain to keep the network synced.

A stellar blockchain platform can be used to issue your own assets, trade peer-to-peer tokens and transform currency while sending.

Below are the significant features of the Stellar Blockchain Network:

• It has a decentralized and open database.
• It enables thousands of transactions in a second.
• It takes a confirmation time of only 3-5 seconds.
• The network allows multi signatures and smart contracts.
• It has a 1% fixed annual inflation.

3. Hyperledger Fabric

Hyperledger Fabric is proposed as a foundation for building apps or solutions with a modular architecture. It allows components, including membership services and consensus, to be plug-and play. It has a wide range of modular and versatile design that meets various industrial use cases.

One of the significant features of Hyperledger Fabric is the enablement of a network of networks. Members of the Fabric network work together, but because businesses want to keep some of their data to remain private, they usually maintain separate relationships within their networks.

For example, a buyer may with different sellers, selling the same product. The transactional relationship between buyers and sellers should be private and not visible to all sellers. It can be made possible via the “channels” feature in Hyperledger Fabric.

Instead of an open and permissionless system, Fabric provides a secure and scalable platform that supports confidential contracts and private transactions.

Here are some of the features of Hyperledger Fabric that makes it different from other platforms:

• Highly modular
• Low latency of finality
• Support for Solidity and EVM
• Multi-language smart contract support
• Pluggable Consensus
• Queryable Data
• Multi-language smart contract support

4. Hyperledger Sawtooth

Hyperledger Sawtooth provides a modular and flexible architecture that separates the core system from the application domain. Therefore, smart contracts can imply the business rules for applications without understanding the underlying design of the core system. It supports different consensus algorithms, including Proof of Elapsed Time (PoET) and Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT).

It is an enterprise blockchain platform used for developing distributed ledger networks and applications. It aims at keeping ledgers distributed and smart contracts secure, specifically for enterprises. It streamlines blockchain app development as developers can specify business rules for their apps using their chosen language.

Following are some of its features that distinguish from other blockchain platforms:

• Private networks with sawtooth permissioning feature
• Parallel transaction execution
• Ethereum contract compatibility with Seth
• Pluggable consensus algorithms
• Separation between the core system and application level

5. EOS

EOS is a blockchain platform designed to develop scalable and secure dApps. It provides dApps’ hosting, smart contracts capability, decentralized storage of enterprise solutions to solve the scalability issues faced by Ethereum and Bitcoin.

The EOS platform eliminates all users’ fees and accomplishes consensus by leveraging multithreading and delegated proof-of-stake algorithm. They have a dedicated community named “EOS forum,” where developers and investors can discuss the platform.

Following are some of the features of the EOS blockchain that make it one of the reliable platforms:

• Usability
• Governance
• Multiprocessing
• Flexibility
• Measurability
• Upgradability
• Permission Schema

6. Openchain

Openchain is an open-source distributed ledger technology designed for organizations willing to issue and manage digital assets in a secure, robust and scalable manner. It uses a different consensus than Bitcoin-based systems, i.e., Partitioned Consensus. Every instance of Openchain has only one authority validating transactions.

Rather than one single central ledger, each organization controls its own Opechain instance to connect. Since it uses a client-server architecture, it is more reliable and efficient than P2P architecture. Also, there is no miner involved in the Openchain blockchain network; therefore, the asset administrator directly validates free and instant transactions.

Here are some of the features of the Openchain blockchain network:

• Modular Design
• Free transactions
• Highly scalable
• 2-Way Peg
• Unified API
• Smart Contracts Functionality

7. Corda

Corda is an open-source blockchain platform that allows businesses to transact directly and in strict privacy with smart contracts. It reduces record-keeping and transaction costs by streamlining business processes.

It is a flexible and agile platform that can scale to meet the business requirements. Applications built on Corda, CorDapps are designed and developed to transform businesses across a wide array of sectors, including healthcare, energy, insurance, finance and more.

Features of the Corda blockchain platform that make it one of the ideal platforms:

• Privacy
• Open design
• Interoperability
• Agile and Flexible
• Open Development

8. Tron

Tron is a decentralized blockchain platform that aims to develop a decentralized web. Like Ethereum, Tron allows dApp developers to create and leverage complete protocols via smart contracts on the blockchain.

The Tron platform can handle 2000 transactions per second, which put it on par as compared to major payment processors like Paypal. It has zero transaction fees.

Tron depends on the Delegated-Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism to secure the blockchain. A DPoS is similar to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism that allows users to earn passive income whenever they stake their holdings in a network wallet.

Features of Tron Blockchain Network:

• High Scalability
• High Availability
• High Throughput
• Compatibility with EVM
• Multi-language extension
• Eliminating counterfeit chain

9. Hedera Hashpraph

Hedera Hashgraph Platform is a lightning secure, fair and fast platform that does not require computing a heavy proof of work algorithm. It allows developers to develop new innovative and scalable decentralized applications.

Smart contracts in the Hedera Hashgraph platform can be built dynamic just like any other software component. As the platform provides an optional mechanism that enables “binding arbitration”, the smart contracts deployed with a list of public keys of arbitrators can be edited to fix errors or add new features.

Following are some of the features of the Hedera Hashgraph platform:

• Fast
• Fair
• Secure
• Implementation of public BFT Notary Service for Corda
• Connecting Hyperledger Fabric network to Hedera Consensus Service

10. Ethereum

Ethereum is one of the leading blockchain platforms that has a native cryptocurrency called ETH or Ether. Developers use Ethereum to build new applications related to financial apps, decentralized markets, games, cryptocurrency wallets and more.

They have the largest community with core protocol developers, cypherpunks, crypto-economic researchers and mining organizations. It aims to eliminate internet third-parties who save data and track financial instruments.

Below are some of the features of the Ethereum platform:

• Smart Contracts Functionality
• Turing Completeness
• Permissioning
• Privacy
• Rapid Deployment
• Tokenization

As we have listed the top blockchain platforms that you would want to explore in 2021, now, you will have a question in your mind, “how do I choose the blockchain platform.” You would always need a platform that is ideal for your business use case.

We are here to help you select the right blockchain platform.

How to choose a Blockchain Platform?

Once you have decided on your business use case, the next step is to select the right blockchain platform. Consider the following factors when choosing the blockchain platform:

• Type of Blockchain you need

  Before selecting a blockchain platform, you need to understand what type of blockchain is right for your use case. You will need to use the permissioned network if you want to have your participants authorized before participating in the network. Therefore, it is essential to identify whether you require a permissioned or permissionless blockchain.

• Languages supported by the platform

  If you have a team of in-house developers, you need to look out for the platform that your developers can work on. For example, you might have to look for a platform that supports specific programming languages such as Python, Java, Javascript and more.

• Below are some of the features of the Ethereum platform:

  The blockchain’s scalability refers to the blockchain platform that achieves a high TPS (transaction per second) rate. For example, Bitcoin can execute around seven transactions per second, Ethereum can handle 20, while Stellar can perform up to 1000 transactions per second.

  If you are looking for a blockchain platform, you must look at the transaction capabilities and identify if the requirements can be met or not.

• Security

  Security can be a crucial factor for many organizations, especially if your organization needs to manage sensitive information. To ensure that no security breaches occur, it is essential to select a platform that maintains security. Some of the popular platforms, including EOS and Hyperledger Fabric, have an excellent record of handling security.

• Smart Contracts Functionality

  Not every blockchain platform supports the concept of smart contracts that are useful for validating, enforcing or triggering actions on the blockchain system.

Conclusion

Forrester predicts that 30% of projects will make it into production globally in 2021. The number reflects the increasing maturity of blockchain technology and the demand for more robust blockchain platforms.

If you are confused about selecting the right blockchain platform for your business, consult our blockchain experts. We can also help you convert your blockchain project idea into a real product with our expertise on top platforms.