Top 4 Ethereum Alternative Blockchains That Support NFTs

NFT is an acronym for Non-Fungible Token. They are one-of-a-kind digital or cryptographic assets on a blockchain that belong to you. NFTs have unique identification codes and metadata to differentiate them from each other. Unlike cryptocurrencies , one cannot trade or exchange them for an equal value. So what do NFTs look like? Just to give you an idea, at present, the most popular NFTs include music and artwork. They can also include tweets and videos.

In case you haven’t heard of NFTs before, they are not something new. They have been around for almost a decade now. Starting in mid-2010, they gained sudden fame in February 2021 when Beeple, an American digital artist, graphic designer, and animator, sold an NFT collage, in an auction, for a whopping $69.3 million. Since then, there’s no looking back. NFTs have now entered the mainstream, and several blockchains support them.

If you are interested in NFTs and looking for Ethereum alternative blockchains that support them, you are on just the right page. Today, we aim to discuss your top 4 options.

1. Flow – Flow was launched by Dapper Labs, a Canadian-based company, in early 2020 and is now considered an excellent option to Ethereum. This blockchain is PoS-based or Point of Sale based. It can fuel complete networks of applications, specifically those aligned with digital collectibles and games.

Flow has a unique multi-node and multi-role structural design that challenges and overcomes scalability issues and guarantees swift transactions at a low cost. The users have to use the FLOW token (platform native currency) for completing transactions, laying stakes, and power voting.

Flow has its own APIs and provides complete guidelines on using them. One of the best features of the Flow blockchain is its speed of performance. Just to give you an idea, it can execute more than 10,000 transactions in a second. When it comes to fees, the users pay twice for completing a transaction. 

2. Cardano – Charles Hoskinson, the Ethereum co-founder, launched the Cardano blockchain. It is a sophisticated, open-source proof-of-stake-driven blockchain. Its prime area of focus is scalability and regulatory compliance. It enables transactions in ADA, which is its native crypto.

Cardano consists of two layers:

Cardano is capable of executing more than 250 transactions a second. Hydra, which is its Layer 2 scaling protocol, further enhances its performance to up to 2 million TPS (Transactions Per Second) with almost 2000 staking pools. Speaking of transaction cost, it comes to around 0.16 to 0.17 ADA, which roughly comes to a penny or a maximum of two. If you want to start trading with Cardano, click here to get its APIs.

At present, the Cardano blockchain boasts quite a few successful NFT projects like Somint (a marketplace for art), CardanoKidz (collectible cards), Crypto Knitties (assortment of as many as 10,000 knitted characters), Spacebudz (first million-dollar NFT deal on Cardano), etc.

3. Solana – Solana, developed by Anatoly Yakovenko, is the fastest proof of stake blockchain globally. SOL is its native token and is amongst the highest traded tokens over centralized exchanges. Solana is based on two consensus mechanisms, namely:

Solana’s programs or smart contracts are implemented on-chain through the C, C++, and Rust programming languages. Its transaction fee is as low as $0.00025. Its lightning-fast speed executes 65,000 TPS and can reach as high as 700,000 TPS. Its hybrid protocol markedly reduces the authentication time for both transaction and execution of the smart contract. To check out Solana’s APIs, click here .

Notable NFT projects running on Solana blockchain are SolPunks (the CryptoPunks version of Solana), Bold Badgers Squad ( a unique collection of 10,000 Bold Badgers NFTs), Solana Monkey Business (a collection of 5,000 generated pfp monkeys), Degenerate Ape Academy (an NFT collection of 10,000 unique apes), etc.

Solana also has an SPL token program. These tokens are designed explicitly for the DeFi apps. Solana has a cross-chain bridge called Wormhole, allowing users to secure 20 ERC tokens in an Ethereum smart contract. The benefit of it is, it enables the users to mint the SPL tokens on the Solana blockchain.

4. Tezos – Tezos is a decentralized, open-source Proof of Stake blockchain released in 2018. Its native cryptocurrency is tez denoted by XTZ and is capable of executing peer-to-peer transactions. Tezos also serves as a stage for deploying smart contracts. All its API resources are available publicly.

An outstanding feature of Tezos is that it has a self-amending function. This function authorizes the implementation of an open-chain mechanism and does away with any hard fork or split when proposing, choosing, analyzing, and triggering all protocol upgrades.

The Tezos blockchain has a unique LPoS (Liquid Proof-of-Stake) consensus mechanism where any user can become a validator, a baker, or an endorser. All they need is necessary coin strength. In the absence of enough coins, they can delegate. The notion behind this concept is to drive focus on governance liquidity instead of network scalability.

In terms of performance, Tezos can execute around 40 transactions per second, and cost-wise it takes less than 1 XTZ to mint an NFT. The Tezos blockchain serves as a marketplace for several NFTs like OneOf (a music community NFT), Objkt (the first and leading FA2 marketplace on Tezos), Bazaar Market (the first-ever carbon-negative NFT market), and such.

Choosing a blockchain that supports NFTs can be tricky. Nevertheless, knowing where to begin and who the top contenders are, cuts down unnecessary beginners’ mistakes. All the blockchains that we discussed above are the very best. They have minimal transaction fees and high performance. Choosing either of them will not lead you astray. As you gain more experience, you can experiment more, but to begin with, these will set you on the right track.