NFT blockchains provide a database to all participants who deal in NFTs and allow them to maintain and update their information together. No entity is the sole authority of the system. Blockchains can maintain a consistent perspective or consensus on events and states. Blockchain helps avoid the issues of a middleman who charges fees and the days required for settlement.
How Do NFT Blockchains Work?
Blockchain technology provides decentralized consensus to its consumers. Blockchain allows algorithmic contracting and smart contracts based on tamper-proof execution to provide large contracting spaces. The decentralized consensus mechanism shifts the informational ecosystem around the globe into a system where knowledge is dispersed among the participants of this industry.
The difference in the amount of information among the parties makes it difficult to agree on a point; this difference is known as information asymmetry. It can be controlled by smart contracts, which increase the number of people entering the market and increase competition.
However, there is a risk of collision if the information is continually distributed during consensus generation.
Smart contracts have tamper-proof transactions that are created over many blockchain platforms. It maintains the accuracy of transaction history and allows individuals to work efficiently. In addition, the elimination of mediators adds to the security and makes it almost impossible for hackers to penetrate.
What Can NFT Blockchains Be Used For?
The different potential uses of smart contracts with varying possibilities include Ecommerce, Digital rights management, mortgage payment, identity management, auto-insurance, supply chains, and distributed file storage.
Different Blockchain platforms for creating NFTs
NFTs are based on blockchains. Representation of assets on digital or virtual grounds is no longer new. The ability to represent the digital assets having a unique token on a ledger that can not be replicated makes it a feasible option. Different blockchains power the NFT crypto, and each has unique characteristics that they offer to an individual dealing in the NFT crypto ecosystem. Almost all the NFT blockchain platforms can be utilized to create NFTs, but only a few can build NFT blockchain projects.
Some of the top-rated NFTs blockchains include the following.
EthereumVeChainThorePolygonFlow BlockchainWax BlockchainBinance Smart ChainCardonaEOSAlgorandSolana
- Ethereum
Due to its ability to allow smart contracts and other unique features, Ethereum is the most obvious choice among the blockchain platforms in the market. It is also the first platform that innovated the concept of smart contracts. In addition, the first NFTs were also created on Ethereum, which were named crypto punks. Rarible, Opensea, and other big NFT marketplaces have been designed using Ethereum. The most commonly used Ethereum token standard for building NFT marketplaces is the ERC-721. However, the Ethereum ecosystem has also introduced another new standard known as ERC-1155 which permits the creation of hybrid tokens.
- VeChainThor
VeChainThor is among the pioneers of public blockchain platforms that connect digital NFTs with the real world. To allow the utility of NFTs in the real world, the application developers at Vechain created an NFT specific toolset. Hence, it has been proven to be among the best application developers for building NFT services. VeChain offers a stable, high-speed, and secure protocol to provide real value with features that minimize blockchain complexities. In addition, you can also migrate the NFT projects through a foundation grant to VeChain. You can create and use NFTs through the VeChainThor platform, even in enterprise blockchain. The features of VeChainThor make it a compatible option that complements minting and launching NFTs in the enterprise ecosystem.
- Polygon(Matic)
In the Ethereum ecosystem, Polygon provides a layer two solution. It offers better scalability, equal security, and lower transaction fees. Hence, it is a better option than Ethereum, where there is high network congestion and high transaction fees. For developing NFTs on Polygon, developers can use PoS Chain or plasma chain. It provided you with the best user experience as an NFT platform owner with high encryption and increased transaction speed. Polygon allows people to stack assets and earn rewards. With a reduced transaction cost, the Polygon NFT solutions help individuals reach heights in the digital ecosystem.
- Flow Blockchain
The halt to Ethereum in 2017 resulted in the creation of Flow blockchain for supporting large-scale crypto-games and NFT collectibles. Hailing from Dapper labs, Flow is purposed to solve blockchain congestion problems and allow users to do extensive scaling without applying sharding techniques. Hence, it provides low-cost and fast transactions that make sense for crypto games and the NFT world. You can develop NFTs on Flow through the smart contract language "Cadence."
Flow charges 0.001 Flow from users who want to open an account and 0.000001 Flow from those who desire to perform transactions. Its superb performance and transaction speed of up to 10,000 per second makes it stand out from the rest. You can avoid persisting existing blockchain issues by using Flow to accommodate transaction fees and scalability. NBATopShots is the most popular NFT project on Flow.
- WAX blockchain
WAX (World asset exchange) was built-in 2017 on the concept of EOS Blockchain and hence is considered the king of NFT blockchains. By linking the physical assets to digital records, it accommodates sustainable NFT Blockchain projects. This carbon-neutral blockchain operates at the rate of 8000 transactions per second using the DPoS consensus method. WAX collects a 2% transaction fee whenever any NFT is sold or bought. For many NFTs, WAX serves as a solid foundation, including the Alien world, the NFT metaverse where you can play with digital assets, and R-planet. This revolutionary NFT staking game system helps users benefit from unused NFTs. TOPPSMLB is a recent NFT project based on baseball cards on the WAX blockchain.
- Binance Smart Chain
Binance Smart Chain works with the Binance Chain. The interoperability of the Binance Smart Chain with the Ethereum virtual machine allows the extensive smart contract, which both Vyper and Solidity support. Thousands of projects and consumers are turning towards Binance Smart Chain because of its low fee and better performance compared to the most popular blockchain in the NFT ecosystem, Ethereum. Users who want to create NFTs by using Binance Smart Chain are charged $3 as a fee, and the transaction speed offered by the BSC is 60 transactions per second.
The first NFT exchange, BakerySwap, is one of the most successful NFT blockchain projects running on the Binance Smart Chain.
- Cardano
The co-founder of Ethereum, Charles Hoskinson, founded Cardano, a DPOS (Distributed Proof-of-Stake) blockchain. The primary goal of Cardano is to provide the developers a comfortable environment where they can construct Cardano-powered and highly scalable apps and allow transactions in its native cryptocurrency. Its performance is good and has a speed of 250 transactions per second. Its layer two scaling technology, Hydra, is planning to improve the performance of Cardano to allow up to 1,000,000transactions per second. Cardano charges are 0.16-0.17 ADA, equal to 1 or 2 cents.
Comment, an art marketplace, and Spacebudz, the first NFT sale worth a million dollars, are examples of two successful Cardano NFT Blockchain projects.
- Solana
Vying aggressively with Cardano and Ethereum, Solana is among the fastest programmable blockchains in the NFT crypto realm. Solana is the idea of Anatoly Yako, and with a market value of more than $65,155,587,432 through more than 400 projects, it is cutting across Wen3, Defi, and NFTs. Its transaction fee of $0.00025 token is relatively moderate. Solana brought a significant and widespread acceptance with their lightning transaction speeds of 65000 transactions per second. The designers claim to expand the transaction speed up to 700,000. It has a vast collection of impressive NFT projects, The Degenerative Ape Academy being one of the most successful.
- EOS
EOS allows smart contracts and the creation of decentralized apps. EOS native tokens are built on the Ethereum network as they were initially known as ERC-20 tokens.
It has raised more than $4 billion by selling one billion EOS over a year and hosting the ICO (Initial Coin Offering). With an average confirmation time of 0.5 seconds, it handles almost 4000 transactions in a second. One of its remarkable features is that it does not charge any transaction or gas fee. However, to register their wallets and keep the coins stacked, the users should keep some EOS coins.
Atomic Market and Upland are among the most prominent EOS NFT blockchain projects.
- Algorand
Algorand is ideal for minting and managing NFTs and is a highly secure and Layer 1 scalable blockchain. It does not require the creation of new complex applications through the comprehensive NFT functionality as its team believes in the relevance of the NFT market. It can maintain a transaction speed of 1,000 per second, but it is expected to reach 46,000 transactions per second. Its transaction fee of 0.001 ALGOs is almost minimal. Despite being in the market for only three years, it has impressive successful NFT projects, including ANote Music ( a marketplace that connects musicians and audiences).
Well! that’s it! 10 Nifty Blockchains for your NFTing selves! Hopefully this unbiased breakdown on NFT Blockchains was super helpful to you on your path for Nifty knowledge. Please come see me and my favorite nerds over at TechandAuthors.com where obsess over sharing unbiased poetic education, as we learn and launch our tech solutions. Thank you so much for reading, I hope you have a blessed, lovely and NIFTY day, yall! :D
Author
Alyze Sam is a refreshing blockchain strategist, a novel educator, multi-award-winning author, serial co-founder, and a vehemently driven advocate. Sam wrote the first crypto dictionary and published the first books on stablecoins. Don Tapscott published her book 'Stablecoin Economy' at The Blockchain Research Institute in January 2021. Sam's newest book, 'Stablecoin Evolution' is currently the number one new release on Amazon in Computers & Technology. The Bad Crypto Podcast developed a Blockchain Hero NFT inspired by her work: Mz. Stability. After nearly losing her life a few times, Sam is a retired nurse and owns Tech & Authors with her best friends and soulmates, where they spend their days being grateful as they joyfully produce unbiased poetic technical education.