Ethereum appears to be in trouble as it grows its network as powerful adversaries begin to rise on the horizon. Projects like Cardano, Polkadot and BSC are beginning to show an almost unstoppable force, which, along with their scalability, low cost and potential in smart contracts, could take ground from Ethereum.
There is no doubt that Ethereum is the blockchain par excellence for DApps and smart contracts, and this has kept it strong in second place among the large global blockchains. However, the delay of Ethereum 2.0, the constant rise in the price of Gas, and the pressure of use on the blockchain is beginning to take its toll on the Ethereum ecosystem.
Currently, normal Ethereum transactions are close to $5 USD currently, but a smart contract, ERC-20 token or NFT transaction can easily reach $30 or more depending on your gas demands. This situation certainly affects a large number of users who find it impossible to use DApps or DEXs with commissions that do not involve a large outlay.
Faced with this, the competition's strategy is clear: demonstrate to developers and users that there are other cheaper and faster platforms and alternatives for their DApps. A strategy that Cardano, BSC and Polkadot have been able to replicate to the point where these three blockchains now occupy fourth, fifth and sixth place respectively. But, the strategy of conquering second place does not end there, now they have begun to attract greater traction to their projects, more users eager to be able to use their DApps, free from the worry of high commissions.
This is what has led to DappRadar to publish your most recent report where he reveals that Binance Smart Chain (BSC) has gained ground against Ethereum, by surpassing it in transaction volume and in the number of unique active wallets on the network during this month of February.
The situation becomes more striking when several developers of important projects are looking for other options to migrate their protocols, such as Sushi Swap, DEX de DeFi which recently announced its integration into several blockchain networks, including the BSC.
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Polkadot and Cardano, the strong opponents of Ethereum
However, this may change in 2021. Polkadot, the well-known highly scalable blockchain, has projects such as Solanawhich use their parachains (Polkadot sidechains) to create an Ethereum-compatible environment capable of far exceeding its transaction processing capabilities at a minimal cost. And that's just the beginning of Polkadot's developing potential, which we will see increase in 2021 with the arrival of its major new update: the introduction of the protocols XCMP (Cross-Chain Message Passing) and the «parathreads«, which will improve the overall interoperability and scalability of an already fast blockchain.
At the same time, Cardano has had a 2021 of sustained growth, one driven by its new updates and the arrival of smart contracts to its main network. Cardano Plutus, is the platform that will allow this blockchain to finally enjoy the ability to create smart contracts on its network, using the programming language Haskell, which is focused on security and correctness, allowing the creation of much more secure and readable smart contracts. In addition, this is accompanied by a series of unique potentialities of its network, such as the fact that generating a token or interacting with it does not require Gas, and that the commissions and speed of the network are much faster than Ethereum currently. . And, in fact, if the current pace of development continues, Cardano could well be releasing its update Hydra for the first quarter of 2022, thus allowing unprecedented scalability.
Given this scenario, it is not unusual to see how the market has reacted quickly with these blockchains, leading to a sharp rise in the price of their tokens in a clear sign of confidence that these projects can present powerful options in the face of the delayed development of Ethereum 2.0. and of which its greatest scalability asset, sharding, seems to upset its developers.
BSC, a blockchain with potential, but centralized
For its part, Binance Smart Chain is a project with potential, with good development but plagued by defects, the worst of which is centralization. The tight control of its nodes in the hands of 21 validators does not offer much confidence for those who really bet on decentralization as the best bet for security and real financial freedom. To this we can add another problem, the large number of scams that abound in this blockchain. In fact, the DappRadar report highlights that there are already many exit scams and other deceptions that have been carried out within the network, and that have caused users to lose millions of dollars.
One of the most recent has been Meerkat Finance, a decentralized finance protocol built on top of the BSC, whose developers absconded with user funds, which were liquidated after the protocol allegedly fell victim to a security exploit. As desperate users on the networks explain, Meerkat developers said that the protocol's smart contract was compromised, and that more than $31 million deposited in its vault was extracted by an unknown attacker. This happened a few hours after the protocol went into operation, and minutes after reporting what happened, the project's social networks began to disappear, as well as the rest of the funds that remained in the vault.
Because of the way things are happening, some experts dare to claim that this is an exit scam, known in the industry as "Rugpull", in which a protocol is emptied, leaving investors or token holders without anything.
The renowned anonymous reporter Wu Blockchain, noted on his Twitter account that users have resorted to Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, to trace the funds and find out the whereabouts of the money that investors deposited in Meerkat Finance. As of press time, it appears that Zhao has not responded to the community's requests.
“The BSC Meerkat Finance project is suspected to be a “carpet”, which took away 13,96 million BUSD and another 73.635 BNB. MKAT claimed to have been hacked and stole all resources. Currently, the project website cannot be opened. “This may be the largest fraud project seen on the Binance Smart Chain.”
As Wu Blockchain explains, the stolen funds amount to 13,96 million BUSD, worth about $3,38 million, and 73.635 BNB, worth about $16,11 million at the time of going to press. The value of both tokens in the market has fallen by more than 12% since the scam was revealed.
Given the number of scams like these that have already occurred in the BSC, the creators of DappRadar recommend that investors and users carefully review the protocols that run on this blockchain before placing their money in them, in order to avoid million-dollar losses such as this.
A year 2021, with great expectations
Already in the last month of the first quarter of 2021, it is clear that this year is one of great expectations for the crypto space. Ethereum and its developers continue their work to maintain what is already working and push for the development of the promises of Ethereum 2.0 to finally materialize.
While Polkadot and Cardano rise as the big projects of the year, their growth in recent months is a clear sign that the blockchain potential, driven by institutional adoption and the massive arrival of users, could take this to a new level. technology. Facts that, for the moment, do not shake the undisputed king of the crypto world, Bitcoin, which continues its unstoppable upward momentum.
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