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Best Blockchains for NFT Development
Ethereum
Launched in 2015 by Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum is leading the way and is currently the most widely used blockchain in NFT projects. It has a large developer community, which is a considerable advantage, as any bugs that occur can be fixed efficiently, and new and advanced features are implemented on a regular basis. Additionally, Ethereum comes with a lot of technical documentation that can be very helpful for developers when building dApps or smart contracts.
Ethereum is the driving force behind two popular token standards, ERC-721 (for creating non-fungible tokens) and ERC-1155 (for creating new semi-fungible tokens). These two standards have formed the basis of most existing NFTs so far, and this trend is likely to continue. Also, Ethereum recently proposed another standard — EIP-2309. This will allow for more efficient minting of NFTs, enabling users to mint any number of tokens per transaction.
To implement smart contracts, Ethereum uses Solidity, an object-oriented programming language created by the Ethereum team and compiled by the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Blockchain also has its own cryptocurrency called Ether (or ETH). In addition to this, Ethereum has over 460,000 token contracts based on its ERC-20 standard. Some of the leading cryptocurrency projects include Tether (USDT), Basic Attention Token (BAT), USD Coin (USDC), ChainLink (LINK), and Dai (DAI).
Ethereum transaction fees vary depending on network congestion, and typically range between $20 and $70 per transaction, which is quite high compared to other blockchains. In addition to this, Ethereum suffers from low throughput, which limits it to only 13–15 transactions per second. However, it has been promised that all of these issues will be resolved with the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade, which aims to increase transaction capacity and reduce gas fees. In order for this to happen, Ethereum will eventually migrate from PoW to PoS consensus, which is expected to have a positive impact on the entire Ethereum network and, crucially, the environment.
If you have heard of CryptoKitties or CryptoPunks, you should probably know that they are both developed on the Ethereum blockchain. By the way, Visa recently purchased 10,000 pieces from the CryptoPunks collection for $150,000.
Most of the top NFT marketplaces with the largest trading volume are created on Ethereum, most notably OpenSea, Rarible, Nifty Gateway, KnownOrigin, SuperRare, and Decentraland.
If you need information about the Ethereum API, you can find it on the official Ethereum website .
2. Flow
Launched back in 2020, Flow has caught the attention of many crypto enthusiasts and is often cited as a good alternative to Ethereum. The developers of Flow will make it the best platform for consumer applications, with enhanced scalability, composability, and, importantly, a top-of-the-line user experience. As the Flow community says, “Flow promises to push blockchain technology into the billions and put a blockchain wallet in everyone’s pocket”. Therefore, it is safe to say that the Flow blockchain will continue to develop further and may bring more opportunities for NFT enthusiasts.
Flow is the brainchild of Canada-based company Dapper Labs, which introduced CryptoKitties to the world. This PoS-based blockchain can power the entire application ecosystem, especially those related to games and digital collectibles.
Scalable smart contracts with Cadence (the programming language developed by Flow developers) at its core, Flow seeks to ensure greater scalability. Blockchain has a multi-node and multi-role architecture and is part of the key transaction process, namely consensus, execution, collection and verification.
Notably, one of the greatest features of the Flow blockchain is its high performance: it is capable of executing over 10,000 transactions per second. As for its fee structure, Flow charges two types of fees for transactions: a fee to create an account, starting at 0.001 FLOW (the platform’s native token), and a transaction fee starting at 0.000001 FLOW.
When it comes to the marketplace built on Flow, NBA Top Shot is one of the most successful examples to date. At press time, its daily trading volume is $1.1 million, with more than 106,000 transactions per day. Overall, it has facilitated over 3 million transactions since its public beta testing phase in October 2020.
Flow also comes with its own set of APIs and a comprehensive guide on how to use them.
3. BSC
Binance Smart Chain (BSC) is a blockchain that runs in sync with Binance Chain. However, compared to the latter, it has advanced smart contract capabilities (supported by Solidity and Vyper) thanks to its compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). The purpose of implementing this logic is to maintain high throughput on Binance Chain while bringing powerful smart contract capabilities into the ecosystem. Essentially, BSC is neither a layer 2 nor an off-chain scalability solution — it is a completely separate blockchain that can function even if Binance Chain fails.
BNB is the native utility token for the entire Binance ecosystem. It is used for BSC and Binance Chain. The BNB token is used to run smart contracts on BSC and pay transaction fees on Binance Chain and Binance DEX.
It operates based on the Proof of Stake (PoSA) consensus mechanism, supports shorter block times and grants lower fees. Since BSC is EVM compatible, it enables developers to smoothly port their projects over from the Ethereum blockchain, powering a wide range of BSC tools and dApps. From a user’s perspective, this means that applications such as MetaMask can be easily customized to run with BSC.
BSC
Binance Smart Chain (BSC) is a blockchain that runs in sync with Binance Chain. However, compared to the latter, it has advanced smart contract capabilities (supported by Solidity and Vyper) thanks to its compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). The purpose of implementing this logic is to maintain high throughput on Binance Chain while bringing powerful smart contract capabilities into the ecosystem. Essentially, BSC is neither a layer 2 nor an off-chain scalability solution — it is a completely separate blockchain that can function even if Binance Chain fails.
BNB is the native utility token for the entire Binance ecosystem. It is used for BSC and Binance Chain. The BNB token is used to run smart contracts on BSC and pay transaction fees on Binance Chain and Binance DEX.
It operates based on the Proof of Stake (PoSA) consensus mechanism, supports shorter block times and grants lower fees. Since BSC is EVM compatible, it enables developers to smoothly port their projects over from the Ethereum blockchain, powering a wide range of BSC tools and dApps. From a user’s perspective, this means that applications such as MetaMask can be easily customized to run with BSC.
Despite Ethereum’s ubiquity and popularity in the NFT Development space, thousands of users and projects are now turning their attention to Binance Smart Chain due to its good performance and low fees: BSC is said to perform 55 to 50 transactions per second. 60 transactions, it costs about 0.005 BNB (~$3) to create an NFT, which is much cheaper compared to Ethereum.
Notably, BSC has its own token standard, BEP-721, which allows the creation of non-fungible tokens. To date, multiple projects allow users to create and trade NFTs on Binance Smart Chain, most prominently BakerySwap (collectible NFTs), Battle Pets (gaming NFTs), and PancakeSwap (financial NFTs).
BakerySwap is considered the most popular project running on an all-in-one DeFi platform and the first AMM + NFT exchange. Back in June 2021, it managed to reach the milestone of 500,000 NFT transactions, and its Food Combos became one of the top transactions of the month, even surpassing some notable CryptoPunks. BakerySwap also supports the creation of NFT bakery mixes.
If you need to know about the BSC API , you can easily get all the relevant information on the official website.
4. Cardano
Launched by Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson, Cardano is a complex, distributed proof-of-stake-powered blockchain. Its main goals include enabling transactions in its native encryption, known as ADA, and creating a convenient environment for developers to design highly scalable and robust Cardano-powered applications.
The Cardano blockchain has two layers, the Cardano Settlement Layer (CSL) for transferring ADA between accounts and recording transactions, and the Cardano Computation Layer (CCL) with the smart contract logic that developers use to transfer funds. Cardano is based on Haskell, which is the basis for Cardano’s smart contract programming language, Plutus. Haskell is also responsible for providing support for Marlowe, a domain-specific language for creating financial smart contracts.
Cardano has high performance: it is currently able to process over 250 transactions per second. Notably, its layer-2 scaling protocol called Hydra promises to boost Cardano’s performance and enable it to scale up to 2 million TPS via 2,000 staking pools. As for the transaction cost of Cardano, it reaches about 0.16–0.17 ADA, which is roughly equivalent to a penny or two.
When it comes to NFT Development company projects running on the Cardano blockchain, the most successful ones include Spacebudz (said to be the first million-dollar NFT sale on Cardano), CardanoKidz (a collection of collectible cards), Professor Cardano (CNFT will be released on December 2021), CryptoMayor (a collectible game), Crypto Knitties (a collection of 10,000 knitted characters — not to be confused with trendy CryptoKitties), and Somint (an art market).
In addition to this, Cadalabs launched the Cadalabs NFT and Crypto Collectibles Marketplace in late October 2021, the first NFT and digital collectibles DeFi platform powered by Cardano. Cadalabs seeks to provide its users with an opportunity to exclusively mint and brand their digital content and services.
Additionally, Cardano pioneered the concept of a non-fungible appreciation token (or NFTA) minted according to the Cardano CIP-721 metadata standard.
If you want to get started with Cardano, the API available as a free community service can be found here .
