3 Bitcoin Alternatives Compared: Ethereum, Cardano and NEO

If you’ve been digging into blockchain platforms, cryptocurrencies and related technologies for a while, you’ll find that there are endless references to Bitcoin. While this is currently the most popular cryptocurrency using blockchain technology, it’s not the only one.

In this article, we’re going to have a look at some of the more popular blockchain platforms apart from Bitcoin. Rather than looking at the platform as a cryptocurrency, we’re going to look at them from a technology perspective.

Given that there are many platforms out there, with many others coming out on a daily basis, we’re taking a look at some of the ones which already have significant traction:

• Ethereum
• Cardano
• NEO

What is Ethereum?

Ethereum is a blockchain-based distributed computing platform which powers the “ether” cryptocurrency.

Ethereum was founded by Vitalik Buterin, crowd funded in mid-2014, and released a year later, making it one of the earlier platforms and cryptocurrencies.

The following is a video by the founder of Ethereum explaining the platform:

While this was initially an alternative to Bitcoin which was looking to advance the technology per se, an exploited vulnerability in the DAO project (a decentralized autonomous organization meant to provide a business model for the platform) caused the Ethereum project to be forked into two separate blockchains, each with its own cryptocurrency, resulting in Ethereum Classic and Ethereum.

Ethereum is today still one of the main cryptocurrencies apart from Bitcoin, but its real technology advancement was that it was the first technology to implement smart contracts.

The real value of Ethereum, therefore, comes not from the currency but from the actual platform.

While Bitcoin uses the blockchain to verify the ownership of the digital currency, the Ethereum platform allows developers to implement truly distributed applications, removing the “centralized” client-server architecture of the internet. It’s the first platform to implement the smart contract concept.

The Ether currency, while also being a tradable cryptocurrency, is actually used to fuel the network. Participants in the network use ether to pay for services performed by the Ethereum network.

In reality, the cryptocurrency is a side-effect (albeit an essential one) of the Ethereum platform.

Given the smart contract concept, Ethereum can be used to build truly decentralized applications.

Ethereum uses the concept of a virtual machine to be able to do work — the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) — which can run the “tasks” required to build a decentralized application.

Ethereum Strengths:

• A very popular platform and cryptocurrency which keeps growing and was one of the earlier technologies. Big early mover advantage.
• Has the possibility to perform work and implement distributed applications rather than just being a cryptocurrency platform.
• Implements useful technology advantages such as smart contracts.

Ehereum Weaknesses:

• Proof of work requires mining, which is energy intensive. This is being solved with a transition to Proof of Stake.
• The DAO hard-fork of Ethereum was, and still is, a contentious issue which split the Ethereum community. Other very expensive bugs have happened, but all of them were user errors.

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by David Attard via SitePoint