Smart contract platforms are to offer better long-term investment potential than pure cryptocurrencies. Despite Bitcoin now being more than ten years old, cryptocurrencies continue to . On the other hand, a development platform can derive long-term value from the various projects built on it. often considered face criticism for their speculative nature As things stand in 2019, there are several big-name blockchain platforms to choose from, each with their native tokens. However, each also has its specific characteristics, opportunities, and challenges, which can quickly change over time. Therefore, before making any investment-based decision on these platforms, it’s worth considering how each individual platform is performing in 2019. 1. Ethereum is the original smart contract platform, and still holds the first-mover advantage of . It’s also probably the platform that’s the closest to gaining mainstream acceptance, given that and both offer Ethereum blockchain-as-a-service. Ethereum running the most dApps Microsoft AWS However, Ethereum continues to be plagued with scalability issues, and limited to around 20 tps, with no apparent solution in sight. The long-awaited ETH 2.0 upgrade, dubbed Serenity, still has no confirmed release date. Most recently, Vitalik Buterin for Ethereum to use Bitcoin Cash as a scaling layer. This drew criticism from the community, as it seemed to indicate that ETH 2.0 was still some way off. Furthermore, against the dominance of BTC. commented that it might be possible Ethereum’s market share continues to drop 2. RSK is a smart contract development platform developed as a sidechain pegged to the Bitcoin blockchain. This gives it the significant advantage of being linked to the world’s first, most secure, and most trusted blockchain. RSK It’s also good news for RSK that BTC has been over the recent bull run, topping 65% for the first time in over two years. A managing director at JPMorgan on the influx of institutional investment to BTC. His views are underscored by the on Bitcoin futures trading, and the means a sunny outlook for BTC. steadily gaining market dominance recently commented CME hitting record highs upcoming launch of Bakkt Investors in RSK have multiple investment options, through the first layer RBTC token, and RSK has also been developing out its platform. There is now a second layer, called the RSK Infrastructure Framework (RIF) OS, which also has its own token. The provides developer features beyond pure smart contracts, including storage, payments channels, and communication. RIFOS layer RSK offers everything that Ethereum does, and might possibly have solved its scalability issue as well, achieving up to 100 tps. Perhaps its biggest challenge is that it currently doesn’t attract the same headlines that EOS and Ethereum do. However, given that Bitcoin is currently flying high above the competition, this could quickly change. 3. EOS After a , launched in mid-2018 to much anticipation. The platform has a strong team, with CTO Dan Larimer boasting a proven track record from his previous projects Bitshares and Steem. record-breaking ICO EOS However, the major Achilles heel for EOS is its lack of focus on decentralization. There are only 21 EOS block producers, which already indicates weakness to many quarters of a community which prioritizes decentralization. Moreover, that the block producers have been forming cartels to influence decisions on the EOS network. previous reports suggest Recently, EOS made a big announcement timed to coincide with the first anniversary of its main net launch. ; it’s own decentralized social network on the EOS platform. Within a few short weeks, the announcement was that the world’s biggest social network is planning to launch its own cryptocurrency. Time will tell if the EOS Voice network develops into a product that can rival Facebook. It plans to develop Voice eclipsed by the news 4. TRON has the lofty ambition of “decentralizing the internet” and has outlined its plan of getting there in five stages. It’s , but unfortunately, 2019 has seen TRON making headlines for reasons unrelated to its platform success. TRON steadily gaining users TRON CEO Justin Sun’s lunch much-vaunted $4m lunch with Warren Buffett was , allegedly due to Sun suffering from kidney stones. The crypto sphere quickly lit up with rumors that he was banned from leaving China, on Twitter denying the claims. The company ran into trouble recently when there was a claim made that they were working in close association with the Ponzi scheme Wave Field Super Community. This lead to major price fluctuations until the company from the ponzi scheme after which the price soon recovered. recently postponed causing him to make an appearance distanced itself 5. Stellar Like RSK and the polar opposite of TRON, is a platform that doesn’t often make headlines. However, it has some impressive credentials and a compelling social vision. Stellar CEO Jed McCaleb has long been involved in cryptocurrencies. He was in charge of crypto exchange Mt.Gox although he had left before the hacking scandal. Later, he formed Ripple together with Brad Garlinghouse, before starting up Stellar. Stellar Stellar aims to provide the world with access to low-cost financial services. The company has established and , as well as several smaller initiatives aimed at bringing cryptocurrencies to developing countries. partnerships with IBM Wirex However, the network recently of more than an hour, which appears to indicate that the platform is still too dependent on only a few nodes. Although this could be explained as teething problems, it’s an issue that needs fixing, given that one of blockchains much-touted strengths is decentralization. suffered an outage There are other development platforms to choose from. However, these five are among the biggest and brightest in 2019. Each has its own specific strengths and weaknesses, and only time will tell if one comes to reign supreme over the others. As with any investment, always do your research.

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