In the cryptocurrency field, three public chains stand out: Ethereum (ETH), Binance Smart Chain (BNB), and Solana (SOL). Each has its unique development history, founders, and distinct advantages and disadvantages.
The birth of Ethereum (ETH) cannot be separated from Vitalik Buterin (V God). Born in Russia in 1994, he immigrated to Canada with his family at a young age. At 17, he first encountered Bitcoin, which opened the door to his exploration in the crypto field. In 2011, V God co-founded Bitcoin Magazine with friends, becoming an important platform for spreading crypto knowledge. In 2013, he published the Ethereum white paper, laying the theoretical foundation for Ethereum's development and resolutely dropped out of school to dedicate himself to building Ethereum. As a pioneer of smart contracts, Ethereum boasts a large and mature developer community, building a rich and diverse decentralized application ecosystem. Its network security is extremely high, and its degree of decentralization is commendable. However, Ethereum also has some shortcomings, including slow transaction speeds, processing only a dozen transactions per second, and significant increases in Gas fees during network congestion, raising the cost for users.
Behind Binance Smart Chain (BNB) is Changpeng Zhao, the founder of Binance Exchange. The biggest advantage of this public chain is its compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, making it easier for Ethereum developers to migrate their projects. Additionally, its transaction speed is extremely fast, capable of processing thousands of transactions per second, with very low transaction fees, attracting many DeFi and NFT projects to take root here. However, compared to Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain's degree of decentralization is somewhat lacking, with a relatively concentrated node distribution, and user participation in community governance is not as high as that of Ethereum.
Anatoly Yakovenko, the founder of Solana (SOL), previously served as a senior manager at Qualcomm. He brought together technology elites from well-known companies such as Apple, Google, and Intel to co-found Solana. Solana employs a unique PoH consensus mechanism, which gives it an astonishing transaction speed of up to 65,000 transactions per second, with transaction costs as low as a few cents, making it very suitable for high-frequency trading and real-time application scenarios. However, Solana is not without its flaws; it has faced multiple outages, and its network stability has been widely questioned. Additionally, the high performance requirements of its hardware configuration create a relatively high barrier to node participation, which has affected its degree of decentralization.
