The competition among public chains intensifies, and the blockchain ecosystem thrives.

In recent months, the crypto market has seen a flurry of hotspots, with projects occasionally skyrocketing tenfold or even a hundredfold, leaving seasoned investors in the industry overwhelmed. A careful analysis reveals that these hot projects essentially stem from the competition among underlying Blockchains. When a Blockchain develops well and gains popularity, it attracts a large influx of funds seeking investment and development opportunities.

Since 2017, Ethereum has been recognized as the king of public chains. In terms of market capitalization performance, underlying technology, and the richness of ecological applications, it stands out among public chains. However, starting last year, several exchanges have launched their own public chains, making significant inroads into the DeFi space. These emerging public chains not only offer high speed and low fees but also rapidly develop by leveraging the natural traffic and user base of exchanges, capturing a large amount of Ethereum's overflow traffic. At the same time, Polkadot, as a rising star, has also performed well, with a significant increase in coin price and a particularly rich ecosystem that attracts numerous developers. The traditional public chain Tron is also making continuous efforts, with the daily transfer volume of TRC20-USDT surpassing that of ERC20-USDT, and actively developing applications in emerging fields such as DeFi and NFTs.

Blockchain practitioners have always hoped for the emergence of a phenomenon-level application that can be as popular as Taobao, WeChat, and Douyin, allowing more people to experience the convenience of blockchain. After the birth of Bitcoin, blockchain was still simply regarded by the outside world as a synonym for speculation and emptiness. The emergence of Ethereum brought smart contracts, providing the possibility for the development of various applications, but a true "breakthrough" has yet to be achieved.

It was not until the DeFi boom in the summer of 2020 that a large number of outsiders began to pay attention to the Blockchain, DeFi, and cryptocurrency markets. The innovative gameplay of DeFi, such as automated collateral lending, liquidity mining, and automated yield aggregation, attracted many participants. Some earned their first pot of gold, some achieved financial freedom directly, and others began to shout about the Blockchain revolution.

As the founding platform for smart contracts, Ethereum hosts over 90% of DeFi applications. However, with the surge in users, the Ethereum network faces unprecedented challenges, and some fatal weaknesses have been exposed:

1. Low throughput and network congestion. Ethereum's TPS is only around 15-30, which is far from meeting the trading needs of DeFi users. Many users have to wait more than half an hour to complete a transaction.

2. High transaction fees. Since DeFi applications are all based on smart contracts and require miners for distributed bookkeeping, when transaction volumes surge, miners' processing capabilities fall short. To speed up transactions, users have no choice but to increase the Gas fees, resulting in continuously rising transaction costs, with instances of "ten thousand dollar Gas fees" even occurring during peak times.

3. The threshold is high, and participation is difficult. Most projects on Ethereum are developed by foreign teams, and the interfaces are mostly in English, which is not friendly to ordinary investors who do not understand English. In addition, these DeFi projects have a high operational threshold, and ordinary users often find it difficult to understand how to perform operations such as staking and trading.

As the saying goes, where there is demand, there is a market. The bottlenecks encountered by DeFi on Ethereum have provided opportunities for other platforms, which have rushed to take on the overflow traffic.

Since its launch in September last year, a certain smart chain has developed rapidly, standing out with advantages such as low cost, high performance, and diversified projects. The daily transaction volume on this chain has surpassed that of Ethereum, with the number of independent addresses exceeding 1 million, and a certain DEX project's market value reaching 1 billion USD, with a 24-hour trading volume exceeding 1.3 billion USD. This chain has formed an ecosystem mainly focused on DeFi, NFT & gaming, and infrastructure, with over 100 projects launched.

A certain ecological chain has developed rapidly in just three months. It has now deployed projects across multiple tracks, including DEX, lending protocols, and algorithmic stablecoins, with the total locked value of the leading DEX exceeding 1.7 billion USD. The total number of addresses on this chain exceeds 2.09 million, with a locked value reaching 2.8 billion USD, and the daily on-chain trading volume is more than double that of Ethereum.

Polkadot, known as the "blockchain of blockchains", aims to connect all blockchains and create a new ecosystem. In 2021, the Polkadot ecosystem became a hot topic in the industry, with many projects gaining significant attention upon launch. Polkadot has developed a diverse range of ecological applications, including lending, stablecoins, and DEX, with its token DOT price rising from 3-4 dollars six months ago to a peak of 42 dollars.

Tron has shown outstanding performance in USDT transfers, with fast speeds and almost zero fees. As of March 4th, the circulation of TRC20-USDT has exceeded 15.7 billion, with the number of independent addresses surpassing 2.32 million. The Tron DeFi ecosystem has formed a closed loop, including stablecoins, lending, DEX, and other major sectors, with a total locked value reaching 5 billion USD.

Facing various challenges, Ethereum is also responding actively. Vitalik Buterin stated that the most urgent need is to solve the Rollups issue. Rollups, as the most promising Layer 2 scaling solution, are mainly divided into two directions: Optimistic rollup and ZK rollup. Several popular Rollup projects, such as ZKSync and Loopring, have made good progress, and many DeFi projects are trying to use different Rollup solutions.

Vitalik Buterin believes that although competing chains emphasize high TPS, speed, and low fees, they have never mentioned their relatively low level of decentralization. After transitioning to Rollups and sharding, Ethereum is expected to enhance its scalability by a hundred times while maintaining high security and decentralization.

The intense competition among public chains is driving the rich improvement of blockchain applications and ecosystems, while the expansion of applications is also stimulating continuous advancements in underlying technologies. In addition to Ethereum, there are excellent public chains in the market such as Conflux, NEAR, and Kortho shining in their respective fields.

The public chain ecosystem should not and cannot be dominated by Ethereum alone. Only with more innovators joining in and serving the entire Blockchain ecosystem and a wide range of users in their unique ways can we truly promote the development of Blockchain technology and realize its true value. Whether it's Ethereum or other public chains, as long as they can earnestly improve technology, enrich ecosystem applications, and contribute to the entry of Blockchain into the mainstream world, they are the best public chains.