Hello Steemians, I welcome you all to another great week in the steemit crypto academy. Today's lesson was given by professor @alphafx on Blockchain Platforms. The lesson was informative and gave a great insight into blockchain technology. In this post, I will compare the Ethereum blockchain and Polkadot blockchain as my homework task.

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_{Ethereum Vs Polkadot}

Ethereum

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Ethereum is a decentralized open-source blockchain network developed in 2015 by Vitalik Buterin and Gavin Wood. Ethereum was proposed to expand the usability of cryptocurrency. The idea behind Ethereum is to develop a blockchain for developers to build decentralized apps (DApps). Smart contracts are being deployed on the Ethereum network to control the movement of native assets on the Ethereum network. Similarly, users can also build their token on the Ethereum network to fund their project through Initial Coin Offering (ICO) and presale. The Ethereum network has an internal token known as Ether. Ether is used in the Ethereum network for payment purposes and transaction fees.

Polkadot

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Polkadot was launched by Ethereum co-founder Gavin wood in May 2020. Polkadot is a multi-chain network designed to connect with the blockchain of other networks. Polkadot allows the network of other blockchains to interact with each other through heterogeneous parachains. Polkadot aim at creating a platform for developers to build their projects on top of other blockchains rather than just one blockchain. Polkadot has an internal token known as DOT which serves three purposes. Firstly, it serves as a governing token over the network. Secondly, users can use the DOT token staking to earn rewards and finally, the DOT token can be used for bonding for adding new parachains in the network.

Comparison between Ethereum and Polkadot

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These two blockchain have gone a long way to improve and empower the Decentralized apps in the cryptocurrency industry. From the overview of both blockchain, it is seen that Ethereum and Polkadot have a close relationship and objective of developing a framework for developers to build decentralized apps.
Despite these relative goals and objectives between the two blockchain, there is still a difference between the two blockchains. Ethereum network allows developers to build and test projects (Dapps) using smart contracts. On the other hand, Polkadot provides a framework that enables developers to create apps that can interact and communicate with other networks. Though the majority of DApps are built on Ethereum network Compound, Maker, Aaven, Uniswap etc, Polkdot have attracted the interest of many developers like Airgap and Advanca.

Architecture

Ethereum uses the Beacon Chain as its main chain. The Beacons chain makes use of attestation as to its primary load for shard data 1
Polkadot also has a main chain known as the Relay chain. The relay chain has several shards called the parachains which are scheduled for the execution of blocks in the network. Aside from parachains, Polkadot also has parathreads scheduled dynamically for chains to share shared slots 2

Consensus

These two blockchains use hybrid consensus models where blocks are provided to have their finality protocol. The finality protocol for Ethereum is Casper FFG and GRANDPA for Polkadot.

Staking Mechanism

Ethereum makes use of the proof of stake (NoS) network to validate a block, whereas Polkadot uses Nominated Prove of Stake (NPoS) to select validators.

Governance

Ethereum makes use of an off-chain governance procedure like Github discussion. Polkadot uses an on-chain governance procedure. Proposals in Polkadot can be issued through the on-chain committee or the public. These proposals pass through the public referendum where the Dot token serves as voting power and right in the decision making in the network.

Key Comparisons between Ethereum and Polkadot Blockchain

Comaprison	Ethereum	Polkadot
Architecture	Multichain (Beacon chain)	Multichain (Parachains, Parathreads)
Staking Mechanism	Proof of Stake (PoS)	Nominated Proof of Stake (NPS)
Consensus	Casper FFG Proof of Stake	GRANDPA Proof of Stake
Governance	Off-chain (Github)	On-chain( on-chain council, technical committee, public)
Smart Contract call	Smart contracts call each other in the same shards or between shards in the network	Smart contracts call each other in the same parachain or across parachains

Technical Overview of Ethereum and Polkadot

Overview	Ethereum	Polkadot
MarketCap rank	2nd with a MarketCap of $292.43 billion	7th with a MarketCap of $41.15 billion
Circulating supply	115.48 million	929.74 million
Total supply	115.48 million	1.07 billion
24hr trading volume	$32.47 billion	$2.28 billion
All-time high	$2,532	$44.26
All-time low	$0.879	$3.95
Price change since launch	+$2,531	+$37.98
Return of Investment since launch	+89,400%	+1,483%

_{Eth/USD chart image source}

_{DOT/USD chart image source}

In conclusion, Ethereum and Polkadot have similar goals and objectives for the development of DApps. But these blockchains also have their unique features and differences. It is left for a developer to examine his goals on what to achieve in his project. The same thing is applied to every blockchain, every blockchain has its unique feature and advantage over another, choosing a blockchain to build your project depends on the objectives of your project. A developer whose project can be expressed as a smart contract and will interact with other Ethereum based projects can see Ethereum as the best option to build his project.

Note: Ethereum 2.0 which is an upgrade version of Ethereum blockchain was used in the comparison.

Thank you Professor @alphafx for your amazing lesson.