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Solana is a blockchain network that emerged to solve one of the biggest problems in the crypto/blockchain industries, which is low scalability. Because of low scalability, waiting periods for transaction processing can last for hours, if not days. On the other hand, if you are in a hurry to have your transaction processed, you need to pay massive fees, which may sometimes even exceed the size of your transaction itself.
To say that this is inefficient is an understatement, and at that point, you may as well use traditional banking. Solana offers a much faster chain, with the ability to process as many as 100,000 TPS without struggling. In fact, the struggle begins all the way up at 400,000 TPS, which makes it the most scalable and most powerful blockchain in the industry.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that it will be right for everyone. Solana is still young, and apart from having to polish out its systems, it also still lacks the diversity of projects that some other blockchains can offer. With that in mind, we offer our top 8 Solana alternatives, each of which is unique and used for different reasons, so let’s take a look at what they have to offer, and then you can decide whether you wish to explore one or more of them in addition to Solana, or completely switch to them. 1. Ethereum
The first on our list is Ethereum. Now, we know what you are thinking — Ethereum is exactly the blockchain that Solana emerged to replace due to all the issues that it has, and that Solana has removed. That much is true. However, Ethereum is also the father of dApps, DeFi , NFTs, and all other blockchain products that we know and love today.
With that in mind, it is not surprising that Ethereum is also the most diverse project in the world in terms of all the different projects that it offers. So, while Solana’s 100,000 TPS can’t even be compared to Ethereum’s 15 TPS, Ethereum still has an entire sea of content that Solana lacks. We believe that this makes it worth considering. Plus, once Ethereum 2.0 finally arrives, the network will, hopefully, be a lot more competent than it is right now, which might make Ethereum a lot easier to use.
To learn more visit our Investing in Ethereum guide. 2. Binance Smart Chain
In the second spot, we have Binance Smart Chain. Now, BSC is only slightly better than Ethereum in terms of scalability, so it is still no match for Solana on that front. However, BSC is also Ethereum’s main competitor in terms of project diversity. It emerged fairly recently, in 2020, when DeFi blew up. But, thanks to the fact that it is Binance’s secondary blockchain, it quickly attracted attention and trust, allowing it to blow up a lot faster than Solana itself.
BSC was created to be Binance’s version of Ethereum, and that’s exactly what it became. As such, it is also an alternative to Solana that is more than worth considering if you wish to find big and popular DeFi protocols, dApps, and alike.
To learn more visit our Investing in Binance guide. 3. Avalanche
Next up, we have Avalanche – the world’s self-proclaimed fastest smart contracts platform according to time-to-finality. Whether this is true when the project is put against Solana or not is still a debate. However, the fact remains that Avalanche is blazingly fast, low cost, and most importantly – extremely eco-friendly. This is a huge perk, given how much attention eco-friendliness is getting in today’s crypto sector.
This platform also blew up very quickly and became very big in a short amount of time, featuring well over 450 individual projects, and with a powerful burning mechanism that offers to make its token very valuable due to a reducing supply.
To learn more visit our Investing in Avalanche guide. 4. Polkadot
Moving forward, we have Polkadot. Much like Solana, Polkadot also sought to solve the problem of low scalability of older chains, only it used an entirely different approach. Relying on its parachains — parallel chains that run alongside its main chain — Polkadot is able to achieve scalability by sending some of its work to […]
source 8 Best Crypto Alternatives to Solana to Look into in 2022
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