Major Platforms for DApps

Published in

kriptio

3 min readOct 31, 2018

DApps are software programs which run on p2p network of computers and designed to function on the network without being controlled by a single entity. Popularity of DApps keeps growing. Ethereum can be considered the most popular blockchain platform for DApps and smart contracts, though up to date there are quite a lot of alternative projects in the market creating increasing competition in this field. The most popular of them are NEO and EOS. We will compare these projects in terms of several important features, such as current number of DApps, transaction speed and more. We will also mention some other noteworthy projects working in this field.

Number of DApps

Ethereum: ~2050

NEO: ~75

EOS: ~120

In terms of DApps number, Ethereum is an evident leader and that is no wonder as it was the first platform of its kind providing smart contracts and up to date its cryptocurrency is the second popular in the market. Both, NEO and EOS has competitive advantages for DApps developers and have a chance to catch up with Ethereum by a number of DApps one day. Meanwhile, DApps are also built on other platforms:

Tron: ~50

Qtum: ~25

Tezos: ~10

Consensus type

Ethereum: PoW

EOS: DPoS

NEO: dBFT

Consensus algorithms are designed to reach agreement among distributed systems. Solving the consensus problem is important for making a shared public ledger operate on a global scale. Ethereum initially used Proof-of-Work and now it is moving towards Proof-of-Stake Model. Its upcoming Constantinopole hardfork will bring Hybrid PoW/PoS consensus algorithm. EOS uses Delegated Proof-of-Stake and NEO implements a Delegated Byzantine Fault-Tolerant consensus algorithm.

Transaction speed

Ethereum: ~15 TPS

NEO: ~1 000 TPS (current) / 10 000 TPS (claimed)

EOS: ~3 000 TPS (current) / 50 000 TPS (claimed)

Transaction speed is a crucial feature for a blockchain platform as it defines its scalability and ability to affect a big number of transactions simultaneously and flawlessly. For example, Visa has about 1 700 TPS, and such speed allows to use this system in everyday life all over the world. Current Ethereum transaction speed is far too low comparing to its closest competitors or Visa. And that is one of the biggest problems of the network. Both, NEO and EOS are going to provide even higher transaction speed than Visa currently has.

Transaction cost

Ethereum: 0,02 USD

EOS: free

NEO: free

Current cost of transactions in the Ethereum network is about 0,02 USD, it can be checked on ethgasstation.info. EOS and NEO have a strong competitive advantage over Ethereum offering transactions with zero fees. NEO has no transaction fees limited to 21 transactions per block, though the user can choose to pay the fee for priority. In order to send a transaction over the EOS blockchain free of charge, the user has to deposit few tokens into the account.

Market Cap

Ethereum: $20,3 billion (rank 2)

EOS: $4,6 billion (rank 5)

NEO: $988 million (rank 15)

Ethereum has the largest market cap comparing to its competitors and the gap is still very big despite sharp fall in the price of ETH this year. EOS crowdsale, that can be called the biggest ICO in history up to date, finished just several months ago, but EOS coin already takes the 5th position by market cap, having left NEO behind. Some other blockchain platforms for DApps also have good market cap ranking and prospects of further growth:

Tron — $1,5 billion (rank 11)

Tezos — $782 million (rank 18)

VeChain Thor — $575 million (rank 20)

Qtum — $331,2 million (rank 28)

ICON — $242,9 million (rank 37)

Wanchain — $111 million (rank 59)

Summary

Ethereum:

➕ Highest popularity among the users

➕ Simple and fast token creation

➕ Easy integration with exchanges

➖ Low transaction speed

➖ Lack of scalability

➖ Strong power consumption due to PoW

NEO:

➕ Backed by Chinese government

➕ High transaction speed

➕ Zero transaction cost

➕ Dual token model (Neo+GAS)

➖ Relatively low level of decentralization

➖ Lack of anonymity

EOS:

➕ Increased scalability