Not Just Ethereum
Other Blockchains That Support Token Launches
Ethereum, the first cryptocurrency to incorporate the smart contract into a production blockchain, is the most popular platform on which many companies and organizations issue their tokens. But, Ethereum is no longer the only blockchain to support this innovative technology.
Although it will remain the original decentralized application platform, Ethereum has gained notable competition since its initial release in 2015. These competing blockchain technologies include EOS, Lisk, and Ethereum Classic. Each of these coins’ practicality in token launches will be discussed below.
Please note: A token that exists on the blockchain is a type of smart contract. Thus, a platform that supports smart contracts is able to support tokens. The two terms will be used interchangeably throughout this article.
EOS
EOS is a blockchain implementation built to be a direct competitor to Ethereum.
The company is currently running an ICO on the Ethereum blockchain. That may seem rather contradictory at first: why would an Ethereum competitor be hosting an ICO on the Ethereum blockchain? EOS is doing this as a means of raising money. They currently need funding, because the EOS blockchain does not exist at the moment.
Although its non-existance may raise a red flag in considering it a viable platform for token launches, we must consider that the company has, in fact, published a technical whitepaper in which they describe an interesting smart contract model.
EOS introduces the Asynchronous Smart Contract (ASC), a technology that allows the network to process orders of magnitude more transactions than current implementations like Bitcoin and Ethereum. This means that smart contract operations and conventional blockchain transactions can take place simultaneously. This is something that users and developers could find very attractive, as it would allow ICO volumes and market capitalizations to increase on the network.
Lisk
Lisk has built a blockchain entirely using JavaScript and its related technologies. With that being said, Lisk allows developers to create smart contracts entirely using JavaScript. This is a huge step forward, as JavaScript is one of the most popular languages in the world at the time of this writing.
The JavaScript community is very large, and Lisk’s choice to support JavaScript smart contracts opens the door to a multitude of developers with interests in blockchain who may have been hesitant to learn a new language in order to get started.
With an influx of JavaScript developers in the community, Lisk may see a subsequent increase in users. This permits a growth in community that could be relatively enticing for individuals and organizations wishing to launch an ICO on this network, as this growing community could raise the collective value of tokens hosted on the Lisk blockchain.
Ethereum Classic
https://ethereumclassic.github.io
The original, unchanged blockchain that remained after the hard fork, Ethereum Classic (ETC) was the same technology as Ethereum (ETH), before the hack of the Distributed Autonomous Organization.
It is because of this that Ethereum Classic has functionality that is nearly identical to that of Ethereum: developers within the Ethereum Classic community can create smart contracts in similar fashion to those within the Ethereum community. Although it is no longer identical to ETH, ETC still allows developers to implement smart contracts in the same programming language as ETH, Solidity. This means that companies and organizations are able to host their token launches on the Ethereum Classic blockchain, in addition to the Ethereum blockchain, with little extra work in development, making it a practical platform for launching tokens.
Ethereum is still the de facto blockchain platform for token launches, as it is the first implementation to include smart contracts. Now that blockchains like Lisk, EOS, and Ethereum Classic are growing, however, the innovative coin may lose its grasp of the token market. And while these new blockchain implementations are, in fact, promising, can they truly prove themselves to be better alternatives for companies and organizations wishing to launch their ICOs?
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