Ethereum is the pioneer that greatly influences the big picture of the entire DeFi space. In a nutshell, Ethereum (ETH) is an open-source blockchain project which goes beyond the concept of centralization. In the blink of a time, the world found Ethereum’s concept more viable and secure.
The origination led to the rapid boom in a number of altcoins to compete with Ethereum and surpass its global market. They were termed “Ethereum killers” since the competition was to grab the spot of Ethereum.
In the sea of ETH-killers, Solana, Cardano, and BNB are some projects which attracted the community massively. These projects understood that the only way to fight Ethereum is by providing services that bridge its limitations. No other project has made big in the crypto space and lived the ETH killer gimmick as them.
Solana
Solana clicked the masses by bringing the solution to Ethereum’s expensive gas fees and network congestion problems. It is doing so by implementing the Proof of History consensus mechanism rather than the Proof of Work of ETH.
As of 1 April 2022, Solana’s ATH (All-Time High) market was 9500%+ from the launch price. While Ethereum’s ATH price at the time of Solana launch was beyond 10000%. It clearly depicts, ETH won.
Ethereum has won this competition by giving more security and transparency to users as compared to Solana. Not only that, the features that Solana offered over Ethereum’s limitations are resolved by Ethereum 2.0, positioning Ethereum as a clean winner presently.
Cardano
The other massive prominent ETH-killer is Cardano (ADA). It was lagging far behind and has possibly lost against Ethereum until its Alonzo fork update turned the tables. The update made Cardano stand again in the battle. You might be thinking how?
The update has enabled users to deploy DApps and smart contracts more efficiently on the network. This update suddenly attracted all kinds of user groups. As a result, Cardano’s valuation burgeoned. Cardano is growing at the average rate of approximately 700% per year for the last five years.
However, it is not even half of the growth rate of ETH. As per the trend, Cardano cannot surpass ETH in terms of the global market in any near time regardless of product improvements of Cardano.
BSC
The possible secret winner, Binance Smart Chain, is the only project which is showing signs of crossing Ethereum indirectly in the last few months. BSC operates on DoPA consensus, by
which the transactions done at it cost 14 times lower gas fees than Ethereum’s. However, the CEO of Binance stated the goal isn’t to compete with ETH but to serve the demand that is unmet by ETH.
As per Binance, the project has successfully defeated the ETH in the total number of transactions and users. But, Ethereum is still shining as future and irreplaceable network since new announced developments are quite promising.
Final thoughts
Ethereum holds its own pivotal value in the DeFi space. Although ETH has the second-biggest market in the DeFi space after Bitcoin. Since the ETH is flying solely in the sky, many other birds (altcoins) are emerging to surpass it. Moreover, nobody is compatible to give a fight to its user base presently. But, some projects, namely Solana, Cardano and BNB, have maintained their ”Ethereum killer” gimmick.
All of them are better at some aspects. However, no one has shown indications of overtaking ETH in all ways except BSC, which unintentionally falls under the “Ethereum Killer” category.
About the author
This article is authored by Suraj Santlani. He works as a freelance content & copy writer in Web3, Crypto and DeFi space. Suraj has been active in this space since a year in which he managed to work with numerous clients in the space including Coinbase. For any of the writing services, you can mail Suraj at [email protected].
