Here are the top competitors eating into the market share of Ethereum (ETH)

• Although Ethereum dominates the market in smart contracts, DeFi, and NFTs, new players are emerging fast.
• The closest rival to Ethereum as of now is Cardano (ADA).

Ethereum blockchain, the name usually resonates with being the first choice for smart contract developers, DeFi developers, stablecoins, and NFTs. Over the years, the Ethereum blockchain network has emerged to be a dominant force in the market offering multiple network utilities.

A huge number of crypto projects in the market have made Ethereum their base. However, with the growing number of stakeholders, Ethereum is facing serious challenges in terms of high gas fees and relating scaling issues.

This is where other competing projects aka the so-called Ethereum-killers are slowly eating into the market share of Ethereum. Popular crypto analyst Lark Davis has revealed his top picks for Ethereum competitors. Let’s have a look at each of them.

1. Binance Smart Chain (BSC)

Crypto exchange Binance has been working hard to expand its ecosystem, and the Binance Smart Chain has a shot at dethroning Ethereum. Being the world’s largest crypto trading platform, Binance has successfully managed to onboard users on BSC at unprecedented speed.

Thus, the Binance Smart Chain has been hosting several DeFi applications. Furthermore, back in June, BSC launched its first indigenous NFT marketplace.

The Binance Smart Chain has more than $17 billion in total value locked. Of which PancakeSwap alone contributes to 50 percent of the TVL. Also, BSC draws a large number of transaction values on a daily basis. Not to forget, the cheap fees and fast transactions are the added USPs here. This also makes BSC the second-biggest smart contracts platform after Ethereum (ETH).

2. Terra (LUNA)

Analyst Lark Davis is quite bullish on his outlook for Terra and finds a promising future for the blockchain ahead. Besides, Terra is all set for a Columbus 5 upgrade in September 2021. This will bring exciting new features to expand the scope of Tera’s network capabilities. There are three major upgrades in the line ahead for Terra.

1. The first upgrade will bring a system of autonomous burning of Seigniorage aka LUNA cryptocurrency. This burning mechanism will positively impact LUNA’s price going forward.
2. Another feature with Col-5 is Terra’s Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) capabilities. As it says, the Terra network can communicate with other blockchains thereby increasing LUNA’s use-cases.
3. The Wormhole and Ozone features will further boost the system’s efficiency and security. Ozone brings insurance-like coverage in case of technical failures while also protecting the network against external attacks.

The total value locked on the Terra blockchain has exploded in 2021 to $6.24 billion. A lot of this is currently concentrated on Anchor. The crazy feature about Terra is that users get a massive 19.5 percent yield on their stablecoin deposits.

3. Solana (SOL)

Of late, Solana (SOL) has hogged the massive limelight in the crypto space. Earlier this week, Solana’s SOL cryptocurrency made its way into the top-ten crypto list. As of date, Solana’s weekly gains stand at a staggering 80 percent.

At press time, Solana’s SOL cryptocurrency is trading 10 percent up at $78.93 with a market cap of $22 billion. The Solana blockchain network has been heavily backed by Sam Bankman-Fried, the owner of the popular crypto exchange FTX.

The total value locked on the Solana blockchain is $2.86 billion. The TVL has doubled just over the last month amid the recent price rally. The Solana blockchain platform hosts some really good decentralized applications (DApps) such as Radium, Serum, etc.

Davis noted that there are a lot of applications coming further on the Solana network. Besides, there’s an increasing amount of adoption for Solana and even NFTs are all set to take off on the blockchain.

4. Avalanche (AVAX)

As per Davis, Avalance is another blockchain that is getting all the amount of attention as of now. Its native cryptocurrency AVAX seems to be having a massive run recently. Over the last month, the AVAX price has quadrupled with a staggering 300 percent price appreciation.

As of press time, AVAX is trading 22.78 percent up and is currently trading at a price of $45.38 and a market cap of $7.5 billion. At this pace of price surge, Avalanche will be swiftly approaching its all-time high of $59.

Avalanche has recently announced a massive $180 million incentive program dubbed Avalanche Rush. This DeFi incentive program has been launched in partnership with top DeFi apps like AAVE and Curve Finance. The official announcement states:

The Avalanche Rush incentive program cements the Avalanche Foundation’s commitment to scale DeFi and create a more accessible, decentralized, and cost-effective ecosystem.

Phase 1 of the Rush program will launch soon and provide the Avalanche native token, AVAX, as liquidity mining incentives for Aave and Curve users over a 3 month period.

However, in comparison to the above three, the Avalanche blockchain has a lesser  TVL of under $1 billion. Although the Avalanche blockchain has fewer projects as of now, more projects are coming to the platform ahead.

Top three upcoming challengers to Ethereum

Lark Davis shares some of his future bets and Ethereum competitors that will undergo full-fledged operations in the coming days.

1. The Polkadot blockchain has seen major developments taking place with respect to parachains. Polkadot developers are working on a complete ecosystem ahead of the full launch. Polkadot’s DOT cryptocurrency is also among the top ten cryptocurrencies in the market.
2. Cardano! The ADA cryptocurrency surged to its all-time high above $2.50 on Friday, August 20. The excitement around the launch of the Alonzo hardfork has pushed prices here. Alonzo will bring the much-awaited smart contracts functionality to the Cardano blockchain. This will increase the network usability by manifold.
3. Elrond! Lark Davis hints that Elrond’s scarce token system is its major USP. The developer activity for Elrond has picked up recently. However, it is still in the very early stages.

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