In this post I am going to compare the ambitious new Avalanche Blockchain Platform with others already known such as the Ethereum, Stellar and NEO Blockchains, analyzing their positive and negative sides, to get to know which of them is the best today. I will try to be fair and objective, even if it is impossible: I am a human being.
Ethereum is a decentralized platform. This means that there is no effective way for the community to fully update the protocol without the threat of a fork. But at the same time, the enormous importance of the opinion of Vitalik Buterin (co-founder of Ethereum) on the development of Ethereum calls into question the decentralization of the platform.
Most likely, over time, Ethereum will find it increasingly difficult to compete with newer technologies. Therefore, it may well turn out to be a highly specialized platform to support ICOs or special smart contracts.
- Positive:
+ Huge popularity;
+ Easy integration with exchanges;
+ Cooperation with reputable organizations;
+ Dominant platform for ICOs and DApps. - Negative:
- Exposure of the network to overloads;
- Low speed;
- Limitation by CPU performance;
- Frequent mistakes in smart contracts;
- Vitalik Buterin plays too big a role in the development of the platform.
Stellar has a relatively cheap and fast protocol. 100,000 transactions on Stellar cost only one cent. It is more secure than Ethereum: its dedicated system for smart contracts limits the ability to write code. Its simplicity makes it ideal for applications that do not require Turing complete smart contracts. In short, Stellar is all about high performance, security, and very cheap transactions.
- Positive:
+ Faster transactions;
+ Low commissions;
+ Good performance;
+ Liquidity;
+ Safety;
+ Own decentralized exchange. - Negative:
- Centralization;
- Lesser role in ICO;
- More complex integration with exchanges.
When developing NEO, Ethereum's mistakes were taken into account and the platform itself is being developed for the future, while Ethereum seeks to adapt to current requirements.
- Positive:
+ Compatible with government regulations;
+ Developed for the future;
+ Cooperation with OnChain (great potential for NEO);
+ Speed: 10,000 transactions per sec vs 30 transactions per sec for Ethereum;
+ The use of NEO and GAS tokens are a great advantage when using the Proof-of-Stake protocol;
+ No risk of bifurcation. - Negative:
- Lack of anonymity
- Less decentralization compared to Ethereum;
- ICO ban in China.
Avalanche offers better performance, security and efficiency compared to previous decentralized protocols. With Avalanche is easy to create powerful, reliable, and secure applications and customizable blockchain networks with complex rule sets, or run them based on existing public and private subnets.
- Positive:
+ Avalanche provides over 4500 tps of throughput.
+ Uses a new consensus protocol to continuously confirm transactions in 1 to 2 sec.
+ Scalability: It processes thousands of transactions per sec and can accommodate thousands of validators without sacrificing performance.
+ Stronger security guarantees than classic consensus protocols.
+ Support Solidity smart contracts, as well as well-known Ethereum tools such as Remix, Metamask, Truffle and others.
+ Users can create their own public or private blockchains. - Negative:
- Nothing concrete yet, this project is still so new and, as it develops, it may cease to interest investors.
- Unknown, still only heard by a small circle of users.
Now let's summarize and compare these blockchain platforms according to some concrete criteria.
Ethereum: Undoubtedly wins all others in popularity, but is inferior to Avalanche in speed and scalability and security.
Stellar: Wins Ethereum in terms of speed and security, but again loses to Avalanche in these indicators! However, Stellar is more popular than Avalanche, but it's a matter of time. In terms of scalability, again, Avalanche has the lead.
NEO: Loses to Avalanche in all criteria except popularity, and loses to Ethereum and Stellar in terms of speed and popularity. I believe it can be ranked 4th among the compared blockchain platforms.
Avalanche: It wins Ethereum, Stellar and NEO in terms of transaction speed, security and scalability, and only loses to them in popularity.
Draw your own conclusions, but you can immediately tell that Avalanche looks very attractive, and in the future it may create great competition not only with blockchain platforms compared to current ones, but also with many others that have appeared relatively recently.
As always, research, read, learn, enjoy, follow me on my new Twitter (or the less important one: tip me if you liked it, I need it in my first steps)... and with or without Blockchains, be happy!