Best Blockchain Platform in 2024

What are Blockchain Platforms?

Blockchain platforms help businesses build transaction-based apps backed by blockchain technology, which utilizes immutable, distributed ledgers. Blockchain technology helps document every activity, transaction, or resource moving across a network. Blockchain streaming platforms are development platforms with an encrypted space for the storage of all types of data. The data is used for developing consensus mechanisms and validating and approving transactions. In case of any misuse or fraud, such companies can also audit the distributed ledger and view transaction history.

Blockchain platforms can also be customized by developers in terms of the interface, additional features, and use cases.

Who Uses Blockchain Platforms?

Platforms for blockchain are majorly utilized for creating applications for financial transactions, and can be used across industries, such as eCommerce, data integration, and supply chain management. Businesses across industries can use top blockchain platforms to document exchanges, view transaction history and prevent fraudulent transactions. Such platforms are broadly used by two types of users: developers and investors.

• Blockchain Platforms for Developers: Blockchain platforms help developers create and maintain the entire architecture used in any blockchain system. Such platforms are used by developers to design security systems, design protocols, and overview the entire network. The distributed ledger technology is used to develop a digital system that records transactions. Each system in the blockchain network keeps ledgers’ copy to validate them and prevent any incidence of failure.
• Blockchain Platforms for Investors: Blockchain streaming platforms for investors secure transactions using blockchain systems. Transactions are also verified with the distributed network of computers.

Types of Blockchain Platforms

Top blockchain platforms can be broadly categorized into four types: Private blockchain, public blockchain, hybrid blockchain, and consortium blockchain. These different types of blockchain platforms are described below:

• Private Blockchain: Private blockchain is often used by enterprises to facilitate development, perform transactions, and initiate investigation, in case of fraud. This type of blockchain platform keeps the transaction data confidential and monitors them closely. However, private blockchain data cannot be easily investigated or audited.
• Public Blockchain: This type of blockchain platform is open-source and decentralized. Anyone can use this platform for purposes like mining, development, and transactions. In fact, all transaction details are available publicly to be examined by anyone. However, this platform lacks adequate security measures, and your data is not safe.
• Hybrid Blockchain: It is a combination of both private and public blockchains that ensures the security and governance of private blockchain along with the transparency of public blockchain. For example, businesses can hide the historical ledge of blockchain to a certain limit and keep their confidential data secure.
• Consortium Blockchain: Federated or consortium blockchain limits the number and type of participants to certain user groups. This is ideal for small groups and ensures complete control and authority over blockchain access. It results in higher transaction speed, better privacy, and throughput.

Use Cases of Blockchain Platforms

Supply chain and the industrial Internet of things are the two industries where blockchain technology is creating a lot of buzz.

Blockchain Platforms for IIoT or Industrial Internet of Things

The Industrial Internet of Things is widely used in process and manufacturing companies where IoT devices explode quite frequently, exposing their weak spots. However, with the help of the best blockchain platforms, businesses can manage their IoT devices and ensure better security.

Blockchain Platforms in the Supply Chain Industry

With blockchain platforms, businesses can evaluate and understand their supply chain processes better and engage with customers through immutable data. The data is real and verifiable to ensure transparency and build trust among the trading partners. All the stakeholders can view the transaction status and the status of goods as they proceed through the supply ecosystem.

Key Features of Blockchain Platforms

Some of the defining features of blockchain platforms are their immutability, decentralized applications, consensus among nodes, distributed ledgers, governance, workflows, etc. Let’s explore these features in detail:

• Immutable: Blockchain technology is immutable, or it cannot be altered or corrupted. And that is because it is not managed by any centralized authority. Rather, it relies on the collection of nodes, and every node holds a copy of the digital ledger. At the time of transaction, every node has to check the validity, and prompt transactions in a tamper-proof manner.
• Decentralized Applications: Decentralized means that there is no single governing authority controlling the blockchain framework. Instead, it is managed with a cluster of nodes to ensure secure transactions by anyone who can access blockchain technology directly from the web and keep their assets secure. You can store your assets like documents, cryptocurrencies, contracts, etc.
• Distributed Ledgers: Ledgers on the blockchain network are managed by every user and anyone can view what’s going on with the ledger. There is transparency and visibility with computational powers distributed across different computers. Also, there is higher output.
• Consensus: The consensus algorithm of Blochian platforms makes them quite effective. This algorithm helps in decision-making for the cluster of nodes that will be active on a given network. Consensus ensures that the nodes, which are involved in validating any transaction, agree to each other faster. For any transaction to be successful, the majority of nodes should come to an agreement.
• Smart Contracts: Smart contracts in blockchain technologies are nothing but contracts with intelligent and integrated features to ensure all given parameters are met before a contract is executed. Top blockchain platforms help build smart contracts for multiple purposes, such as, real estate companies can create smart contracts to close a property deal automatically once a party meets the defined requirements for inspection, appraisal, and the approval of a mortgage.
• Cryptocurrencies: This is one of the most prominent features of blockchain technologies. Cryptocurrencies are digital assets that replace fiat currencies like Euro, Rupee or US Dollar. Crypto can be mined directly by the users with access to mining technology and they are rewarded as soon as they solve any complex mathematical problem.
• Development: This feature of blockchain platforms ensures that developers have everything that they would need to develop a blockchain application. Blockchain platform provides all possible resources like asset libraries, templates, APIs, etc.
• Governance: The governance feature is more applicable on private blockchains than on public blockchains. The platform controls and restricts the access to users on peer-to-peer network or private blockchains for better monitoring.
• Workflows: The workflow feature is used by businesses to define the flow of their transaction process. Customizable workflows can be used to create the basic pathway for trading along with validation and finally settlement.
• Benefits of Blockchain Platforms: Some of the major benefits of blockchain platforms are higher capacity, better security of transactions, faster transaction settlement, etc. Let’s delve deeper into these benefits of blockchain technologies.
• Faster Settlement: Processing a transaction in traditional banking systems might even take a day. On the contrary, blockchain provides a faster settlement process where you can transfer money faster with the smart contract system. This will save your time and energy in the long run. Blockchain platform removes any mediator or third party from the transaction process and processes transactions with minimal fees.
• Increased Capacity: Blockchain platforms increase the capacity of the entire network with multiple systems working together. This increases the capacity of transactions than the traditional processes where only a few computers are involved.
• Better Security: As blockchain platforms remove any central authority from the transaction process, the chance of corruption also gets low. The platform is backed by advanced security features like encryption and cryptography to ensure secure transactions. Cryptography creates another layer of security by using complicated mathematical algorithms. Cryptography provides a unique identity to every data where the information is hidden through mathematical algorithms. Any attempt to tamper with the information will lead to a change in hash IDs, and failed transaction attempts. Authorized users get a private key to access the information and a public key for transactions.
• Non-Fungible Tokens: Non-fungible tokens or NFTs are digital assets like music, videos or any form of art with verifiable identifiers based on blockchain ledgers. Artists, content developers and even businesses use NFTs to create digital assets for their community members and the fanbase to buy.

How to Select the Right Platform for Blockchain?

Selecting the right blockchain platform is critical to save your time and enjoy higher speed, better availability, active community support, robust security, and higher adoption rate. With so many options available for blockchain gaming platforms, it’s important to know which is the best for you. Here’re the criteria to consider while comparing different blockchain platforms:

• Adoption Rate: The adoption rate is nothing but the measurement of how popular a blockchain platform is among users. A higher adoption rate indicates that the platform has a higher implementation level. It also suggests that the platform is backed by the latest technologies as per the changing requirements.
• Scalability: Scalability for blockchain platforms refers to their transaction capabilities. These capabilities include the transaction per second or TSP rate. For example, Ethereum has a TSP of 25, while Bitcoin offers a TSP of 5 to 7 only. Stella has a TSP as high as 200 and Solana can even handle 29000 transactions per second. So, you must choose bitcoin platforms according to their scalability or TSP rate.If you are planning to develop a data management solution in-house, then the blockchain platform with an average TSP would work. However, if you are creating a payment gateway, then the TSP should be higher.
• Security: Security is paramount, especially when the sensitive information of your company is at stake. To prevent your data from going to unauthorized people, it is important that your blockchain platform ensures robust security. Platforms like Solana, Bitcoin, Ethereum, TRON, etc. are known for their high-quality security features.
• Community Support: Check how active the community developers are for any specific blockchain platform. There are different apps like LinkedIn, Reddit and Discord where you can read about the community support offered by different blockchain platforms and decide the best one for you. It is important to have the support of an active community that addresses your queries promptly.
• Private or Public: While the private blockchain platform is centralized, the public network is decentralized. In the public platform, users have access to all types of data, ensuring better investigation, audit and participation. However, the private network is more suitable for businesses dealing with sensitive information that cannot be shared with everyone.
• Available Functionalities: Look for certain core functionalities like transaction cost, transactions per second, programming language, capability of development and the adopted consensus mechanism. Although different blockchain platforms are based on the same technology, they differ in terms of features. For example, if you want the feature of smart contracts and higher transactions per second, then look for these metrics specifically.

Top Blockchain Platforms List

Here’s the list of top blockchain platforms along with their features and pricing:

Blockchain Platforms List	Key Features	Pricing
BlockCypher	BlockCypher APIs to build applications, Full node blockchains, Multiple data centers	Free Plan available with 2000 requests per day | $100/month for the paid plan
Hyperledger	Crypto agnostic, Enterprise-grade security, Modular & interoperable	It’s open-source & free
Centrifuge	Access to DeFi liquidity, Open participation, Low cost of capital	It’s open source
QAN	EVM compatibility, Multi-language support, Lattice-based crypto security	It’s open source
Ethereum	Internet of assets, An open internet, Fair financial system	It’s open source
Corda	Smart, flexible contracts, Built-in privacy, In-built network governance	Free plan for starters | Premium plan starts at $0.15/Hour for developers
MakerDojo	Flexible engine, Moola asset comparison, Super strong community	Free plan available with watermark | Pro plan starts at $500 per month