Blockchains and the entire crypto industry are growing at lightning speed. More and more users are approaching this promising technology, and new projects and ecosystems are constantly being created.
The applications of blockchain technology have revolutionized the systemic approach to solving the problems of traditional financial systems by adding decentralized solutions.
But what exactly is a blockchain ecosystem, and what are the best ones?
What is a blockchain ecosystem?
A blockchain ecosystem is a series of elements capable of interacting with each other and the surrounding world to create an environment with particular features. More technical: an ecosystem is the agreed-upon governance structure for a specific use case. The governance structure defines many criteria, such as users' behaviour, data ownership, information sharing conditions among participants, etc.
In a nutshell, the ecosystem refers to the different parts that make up a blockchain network and how they can interact and work together.
Here is an interesting article about blockchain ecosystems and their components.
Pay attention: If a blockchain protocol has a large ecosystem with a diverse range of applications and superstructures, it most likely could be an excellent project to deepen and follow up on.
The most relevant ecosystem in the crypto industry
Ethereum is undoubtedly the most popular and extensive blockchain ecosystem, with an endless list of decentralized apps built on Ethereum.
Other ecosystems are not as big as Ethereum but very well known, like BNB chain, Solana, Cardano, Algorand and Polkadot. These are some of the most used blockchain ecosystems, but over the years, several reputable blockchain ecosystems have piqued the interests of crypto-savvy developers.
What are the top 3 blockchain ecosystems?
Among the crypto ecosystems with brilliant organic growth, we find Avalanche, Fantom and Cosmos, three different and promising protocols and chains with rich ecosystems.
Avalanche
Avalanche is called “the platform of platforms” or “the internet of assets”. It was created to meet the need to create a unified market for creating and exchanging digital assets, building an infrastructure capable of coordinating different specialized blockchains. It is an open-source platform for dApps development and blockchain support for businesses that provides an interoperable and highly scalable system. The PoS (Proof-of-Stake) allows thousands of validators to have a say in maintaining and updating the network, consuming as little energy as possible. It aims to create a plug-and-play system that allows different platforms to take advantage of the innovative consensus system, scalability and ease of asset creation. The platform enables a series of subnets to create a unified market. It developed its own consensus protocol, Snowman Consensus Protocol, to write an orderly and linear blockchain. The pillars on which the platform is based and which constitute its ecosystem are:
Decentralized exchanges like Trader Joe, Pangolin and SushiSwap;
Yield Optimizers like Yield Yak, Beefy Finance;
Lending and borrowing platforms like BENQI, Aave and Curve;
Buy NFT like Unifty, Curate, and Flashback;
Manage your portfolio with Markr, DeBank and Ape Board.
Avalanche offers a rapidly expanding ecosystem that delivers a great DeFi experience to its users.
Cosmos
Cosmos is a high-potential project aiming to create an Internet of blockchains or a network of decentralized and scalable chains that can communicate. The concept behind this innovative platform is simple. Instead of having a blockchain that manages all the various projects, each application has its own blockchain that communicates with the entire network. Thanks to its features, it guarantees each transaction's security, speed, scalability, and cost-effectiveness.
“Cosmos is a decentralized network of independent parallel blockchains, each powered by BFT consensus algorithms like Tendermint consensus.” Tendermint Core
The three pillars of the network architecture are Tendermint, Cosmos SDK and the IBC protocol, which allow blockchains to interact with the Cosmos ecosystem.
For this reason, Cosmos is not considered a blockchain but a network full of exciting projects to explore.
Fantom
Fantom is a secure permissionless, open-source, and highly scalable smart contract platform aimed at eliminating the speed and cost limitations that slow down the evolution of the ecosystem. It is based on an innovative aBTF consensus mechanism called Lachesis, which allows the asynchronous existence of different blockchains without slowing down the main net. Its ecosystem is supported by the Fantom Foundation, responsible for developing dApps and protocols capable of bringing stable volumes to the network, allowing the expansion and definitive access to the podium of the most used blockchains. Every network built on Fantom is independent; its performance and stability are not affected by congestion.
For this reason, Fantom solves the scalability problem by allowing each application to run on a dedicated blockchain.
Furthermore, each blockchain is independent; it can customize its own tokenomics and governance rules, always remaining connected to Lachesis, taking advantage of the underlying innovative blockchain.
Reference dApps in this ecosystem are:
Decentralized exchanges like SpookySwap, SpiritSwap, Curve, SushiSwap and Beethoven;
Bridges like SpookySwap, Ren and Multichain;
Yield Optimizers like Beefy Finance, Yearn Finance, Grim Finance, ReaperFarm and Liquid Driver;
Lending and borrowing platforms like Scream, Tarot, Abracadabra and Geist Finance.
What do you think of these three ecosystems? Which one would you include in your top 3?
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