Top 10 Blockchain Platforms to Explore in 2020

Visionary companies across the globe are using IBM’s popular and exciting blockchain platform, which offers more transparent environments for company operations. In turn, IBM is leading the business world into a new era of collaboration and innovation.

What’s more, IBM stays ahead of the blockchain curve with its separate division that only focuses on creating blockchain applications. With IBM Blockchain, companies can better redefine their business relationships through trust, transparency, and newfound collaboration.

Many people refer to Ethereum as an alt-coin or another form of cryptocurrency, aside from Bitcoin. However, Ethereum is also a blockchain platform. Since 2013, Ethereum has offered developers an open-source distributed computing platform where they can discover all the benefits of blockchain. Vitalk Buterin was responsible for creating this custom-built solution. 

With Ethereum, you can write codes using the Ethereum Virtual Machine run-time environment. If you’re interested in exploring smart contract options, this could be just the service for you. The public platform is a Proof of Work solution, which means that it’s a bit slower in terms of speed, but it’s also accessible anywhere in the world.

Ripple is a blockchain platform focusing on the financial side of the digital revolution. Dating back to 2012, this environment connects digital asset exchanges, payment providers, banks, and more through a blockchain network. You can create global payments with this platform or build your own custom financial solution. 

Currently, more than 300 companies around the world are creating and deploying financial assets within Ripple. There are solutions for minimising liquidity expenses, sending rapid payments across various networks, and much more.

Corda is R3’s open-source blockchain platform helping businesses create more secure and private transaction experiences. Crucially, Corda doesn’t have its own cryptocurrency, whereas a lot of blockchain platforms do. 

Since Corda operates on a permissioned model, you can unlock a better level of privacy for your team. Corda also benefits from a granular level of control over digital records. This product is perfect for the financial industry, but it can also support government, healthcare, and trade authorities.

Providing custom blockchain development options and blockchain services to businesses worldwide, OpenLedger is all about supporting digital transformation. With this unique decentralised environment, companies can create revolutionary business tools that support the management of digital assets. Another bonus is the fact that there are lots of customisable permission options for peace of mind. 

OpenLedger can help anyone get started with blockchain, thanks to services that include a team of dedicated Blockchain professionals. In particular, these specialists can help you work with some of the leading blockchain environments around the world.

Launched in 2018, EOS is a relative newcomer on the blockchain scene. Despite its infancy, EOS has firmly asserted itself in the space. The offering comes from a private company named Block.one, and it’s intended for developing decentralised applications for business. Originally, the company behind EOS distributed a billion tokens for the platform to ensure that its cryptocurrency would spread around the world. Now, anyone can use EOS blockchain to create customisable environments. 

The platform offers an excellent solution for decentralised application hosting. Another massive bonus of EOS is that it removes any fees for users. You don’t need to pay to make the most of this service.

Hyperledger Sawtooth is a blockchain offering made available from the Linux foundation (though both Digital Asset and IBM contributed some technology to this environment). Sawtooth is a modular enterprise-grade platform where experts can create, deploy, and execute distributed ledgers. In this landscape, it’s easy to enable digital records without central authorities.

Sawtooth integrates with trusted execution environments and offers plenty of opportunities to extend your functionality. The modular architecture separates the application domain and core system, so you can use smart contracts to specify the rules for specific applications without having to understand the full core system design.

OpenChain is a public blockchain platform developed by Coinprism. This powerful environment helps companies create fantastic system for experimentation. Anyone can spin up a new instance of blockchain on the environment within seconds. Additionally, end-users can exchange values on the ledger according to rules identified by the administrator of the blockchain.

Just like with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, you’ll be able to track every transaction that takes place using your ledger. Since there’s no miner in the OpenChain environment, the transactions don’t come with every cost to worry about either. 

Quorum, a JP Morgan creation, is an enterprise-grade version of the Ethereum platform, another contender on this list. In particular, Quorum modifies the core of the Ethereum structure to offer something speedier and more efficient for permissioning.

Quorum is excellent for handling applications that require a lot of processing speed. It’s also the perfect option for anybody looking to manage private transactions. What’s more, Quorum comes with full service support and a development landscape excellent for customisation.

Despite being one of the younger blockchain environments in the market today, IOTA is easily one of the most exciting. IOTA took to the blockchain landscape with a mission to fundamentally change the way that people access distributed ledger technology. The result is a more secure environment for exchanging values and data without fees. Interestingly, IOTA doesn’t actually use any chains or blocks, and is instead powered by its own unique technology. 

The IOTA offering leverages the power of IoT for improved business decision-making. There’s also a central environment for upgrading and managing your data. Teams can use IOTA for the creation of digital twins, the development of entire smart cities, and anything in-between. All that, and you get the benefits of being able to add more security and privacy to your landscape.