How Many Blockchains Are There, and What Are the Completely different Varieties?

The Web3 area is huge, and it’s rising larger and larger each day. And never solely are we seeing new decentralized purposes (dapps) pop up steadily, however new blockchains repeatedly emerge as nicely. So, what number of blockchains are there? And what are the several types of blockchains? Be part of us on this article as we tackle each of those queries to offer readability into the ever-expanding panorama of Web3!  

Overview

We’ll kickstart in the present day’s article by answering the query: ”What number of blockchains are there?”. From there, we’ll dive straight into the several types of blockchains. In doing so, we’ll discover what they’re, why they exist, and canopy some outstanding examples for every sort. Subsequent, we’ll additionally discover several types of blockchains for builders. To go together with that, we’ll prime issues off by introducing you to the simplest solution to construct blockchain purposes: Moralis’ industry-leading Web3 API suite! 

Moralis’ Web3 APIs are the final word instruments should you’d prefer to get into blockchain app growth. With our industry-leading interfaces, you’ll be able to construct every thing from block explorers to NFT video games very quickly. 

Additionally, do you know you can join with Moralis free of charge? It solely takes a few clicks, and also you’ll acquire instant entry to all our premier Web3 growth instruments so you’ll be able to construct dapps each quicker and smarter! 

How Many Blockchains Are There? 

There’s a mess of blockchain networks in existence, and a few outstanding examples embody Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and so on. Moreover, the blockchain area is repeatedly rising as quite a few organizations and tasks develop their very own chains to deal with particular wants.

With that mentioned, what number of blockchains are there?

As a result of ever-growing state of the Web3 area, the precise depend of blockchains is difficult to pinpoint. Nonetheless, estimates counsel that the variety of current blockchains is a minimum of 1,000! 

What Are the Completely different Varieties of Blockchains? 

There are 4 most important kinds of blockchain networks, together with public blockchains, personal blockchains, hybrid blockchains, and consortium blockchains. Every sort has distinctive advantages, drawbacks, and very best use instances. As such, let’s briefly discover them one after the other, beginning with public blockchains:

• Public Blockchains: Public blockchains are permissionless, which means they’re absolutely decentralized and open for anybody to take part. A lot of these networks are mostly used for exchanging and mining cryptocurrency.
• Non-public Blockchains: Non-public blockchains are permissioned, which means that only some choose folks can take part within the community. These networks are usually managed by a corporation or an organization, which determines who’s granted entry to learn and write privileges.
• Hybrid Blockchains: Hybrid blockchains are networks that mix options of each private and non-private chains. These networks are managed by single entities. Nevertheless, they’ll determine who has entry to particular information saved on the community and what data can be open to the general public. 
• Consortium Blockchains: Consortium blockchains are fairly much like hybrid blockchains. Nevertheless, in contrast to hybrid blockchains with one controlling entity, consortium blockchains are designed by a gaggle that wishes to make use of the community for collaborative efforts. Customers exterior of the consortium/group usually can’t get entry to the blockchain community. 

What Goal Does the Completely different Varieties of Blockchains Serve? 

The several types of blockchains have their very own units of distinctive benefits and downsides. On this part, we’ll look nearer at what function public blockchains, personal blockchains, hybrid blockchains, and consortium blockchains serve.

• Public Blockchains: Public blockchain networks have many advantages. Some examples embody being fully clear, absolutely decentralized, pseudonymous, and open to the general public. These benefits make them very best to be used instances akin to exchanging cryptocurrencies and organizations constructed on transparency and belief. 
• Non-public Blockchains: Non-public blockchain networks excel relating to privateness, safety, velocity, and scalability. These advantages make personal blockchains good to be used instances akin to provide chain administration, asset possession, inside voting, and so on. In these situations, it’s useful for the community to be cryptographically secured, however the controlling entity needs the knowledge to be saved personal. 

• Hybrid Blockchains: Hybrid blockchains can present closed ecosystems, excessive flexibility, privateness with communication, and higher scalability. These optimistic traits make hybrid chains very best to be used instances the place some, however not all, information must be shared with customers. As an illustration, medical information may be saved on a hybrid blockchain, the place solely customers can entry their very own information through sensible contracts. 
• Consortium Blockchains: Consortium blockchains even have a number of benefits, together with excessive safety, management, and the potential for no transaction charges. These advantages make consortium blockchains nice to be used instances akin to banking, funds, and provide chain administration. As an illustration, two banks can come collectively and kind a consortium to make funds extra environment friendly. 

Completely different Varieties of Blockchain Examples 

Now, with an outline of the assorted several types of blockchains, let’s take this part to discover some examples for every. And to kick issues off, we’ll begin with public blockchain networks! 

Public Blockchain Instance 

Public blockchains are probably the most well-known networks. And until you’ve been residing below a rock for the previous few years, odds are you’ve heard of a minimum of one. The 2 most important examples are Bitcoin and Ethereum:

• Bitcoin: The Bitcoin blockchain is a proof-of-work-based (PoW) distributed public ledger that launched in 2009. The blockchain hosts the BTC cryptocurrency and is answerable for sustaining the historical past of each transaction on the community. Furthermore, because the Bitcoin blockchain is public, anybody can take part and fetch a duplicate of the community to trace each switch since its origins. 
• Ethereum: Ethereum is a public proof-of-stake (PoS) ledger, and it’s a scalable, programmable, and safe community. With Ethereum being programmable, it’s the blockchain of selection for a lot of builders and enterprises trying to create decentralized purposes (dapps). Ethereum additionally has its personal native token known as ether (ETH), which is used to pay for fuel charges on the community. 

Non-public Blockchain Instance 

Non-public chains are – because the title signifies – personal. Consequently, particular person networks aren’t all that attention-grabbing since they are often comparatively area of interest. As such, as an alternative of exploring a specific personal blockchain instance, let’s briefly dive into Hyperledger Cloth – an open-source personal blockchain framework.  

Hyperledger Cloth is an open-source blockchain framework created by the Linux Basis. And organizations use the framework to construct permissioned and personal blockchain networks. Furthermore, Hyperledger Cloth presents distinctive identification administration and entry management options, making it very best for numerous {industry} purposes, together with provide chain administration, finance, loyalty and reward methods, and so on. As such, this framework is usually utilized in enterprise settings. 

Hybrid Blockchain Instance 

Hybrid chains mix each private and non-private blockchain options, and a fantastic instance is IBM Meals Belief – a number one initiative using a hybrid blockchain answer to boost transparency and traceability in provide chains. 

IBM Meals Belief’s personal blockchain gives a permissioned surroundings for provide chain individuals to distribute delicate data whereas concurrently sustaining privateness. Briefly, it ensures that solely trusted entities acquire entry to confidential data. 

Consortium Blockchain Instance 

As with the opposite blockchain sorts, there are additionally many various consortium blockchain networks. Nevertheless, to offer you an instance, we’ll briefly discover R3 Corda – a blockchain community specifically designed for monetary companies. 

R3 Corda is an open-source blockchain venture launched in 2016 by a consortium of banks, expertise firms, and monetary establishments. The venture was constructed on interoperability, safety, and privateness ideas. And it permits for safe and environment friendly exchanges of information between events.

Completely different Varieties of Blockchains for Builders 

There are additionally a number of kinds of blockchains for builders, and they are often categorized in a number of other ways. Nevertheless, a well-liked solution to divide them is to categorise them as both EVM (Ethereum Digital Machine) or non-EVM chains. 

So, what’s the distinction between them? 

• EVM Chains: EVM-compatible chains can run and execute Ethereum sensible contracts. Consequently, builders can write and deploy the identical sensible contracts throughout a number of EVM blockchain networks with out making any important adjustments to the code. Some examples of EVM chains embody Ethereum, BNB Sensible Chain (BSC), Polygon, and so on. 
• Non-EVM Chains: Non-EVM chains, however, are all different networks that aren’t EVM-compatible. Some outstanding examples of non-EVM chains embody Solana, Polkadot, Cardano, and so forth.

One other solution to classify each EVM and non-EVM chains is to divide them into layer-1 (L1) or layer-2 (L2) networks:  

• L1 Chains: Layer-1 blockchains seek advice from base networks, and a few examples embody Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, BSC, and so on. 

• L2 Chains: Layer-2 blockchains are community protocols layered on prime of an L1 answer. An L2 protocol usually leverages the safety infrastructure of the L1 community however is extra versatile in its capability to scale transaction processing and general throughput. Examples of L2 blockchains embody Polygon, Base, Polygon zkEVM, Optimism, Arbitrum, and so on. 

However, that covers some several types of blockchains for builders. From right here, we’ll introduce you to Moralis – the simplest solution to construct dapps on any blockchain community!

Exploring Moralis: Best Technique to Construct On Completely different Varieties of Blockchains 

The simplest manner for builders to construct on a number of several types of blockchains is to leverage Moralis. Moralis is an industry-leading API and blockchain infrastructure supplier, and with our interfaces, you’ll be able to effortlessly construct dapps throughout a number of blockchain networks. Moreover, Moralis’ Web3 APIs at the moment energy blockchain tasks for thousands and thousands of finish customers worldwide! 

However why must you leverage our APIs particularly? 

To reply the query above, let’s discover three advantages of working with Moralis: 

• Scalability: All our APIs are constructed to scale. Consequently, as your tasks expertise elevated adoption, you by no means have to fret concerning the efficiency of your dapps. 
• Prime Efficiency: Moralis’ Web3 APIs are industry-leading. Whether or not you prioritize velocity, reliability, or some other metric, our APIs constantly blow the competitors out of the water. 
• Cross-Chain Compatability: Our APIs are chain agnostic, which means you’ll be able to construct cross-chain appropriate dapps on a number of networks with ease. Some outstanding examples of supported chains embody Ethereum, BSC, Polygon, Solana, Gnosis, Arbitrum, and lots of others. 

In the event you’d prefer to discover our whole suite of premier interfaces, try the Web3 API web page! 

Additionally, together with the Web3 APIs, Moralis has much more to supply. As an illustration, with our crypto taps web page, yow will discover taps for all main testnets. If you wish to study extra about this, you’ll be able to, for instance, try our ”What’s a Goerli Faucet?” information and learn to get Goerli faucet funds in a heartbeat! 

Abstract: How Many Blockchains Are There, and What Are the Completely different Varieties? 

In in the present day’s article, we kicked issues off by answering the query, ”What number of blockchains are there?”. In doing so, we realized that the area repeatedly grows at a speedy price, making it onerous to pinpoint precisely what number of networks there are. Nevertheless, estimations counsel that there are a minimum of 1,000 blockchains! 

From there, we additionally explored several types of blockchains. In doing so, we realized that there are 4 most important classes: 

• Public Chains
• Non-public Chains
• Hybrid Chains
• Consortium Chains

We additionally explored totally different use instances and lined some examples of every blockchain sort, the place we realized that all of them have their benefits and downsides. Subsequent, we dove a bit deeper into several types of blockchains for builders, the place we lined EVM vs non-EVM chains and L1 vs L2 networks.

To prime issues off, we launched you to Moralis and our industry-leading suite of Web3 APIs. In doing so, we realized that they provide unparalleled scalability, prime efficiency, and cross-chain compatibility. As such, if you wish to construct dapps your self, don’t overlook to enroll with Moralis instantly. You possibly can create an account freed from cost, and also you’ll acquire instant entry to all our premier interfaces so you’ll be able to construct dapps with out breaking a sweat! 

Additionally, should you appreciated this blockchain information, contemplate testing extra content material right here on our Web3 weblog. As an illustration, examine ethers.js, study the ins and outs of Web3 Python, or discover the intricacies of the blockchain tech stack! Lastly, should you’d prefer to discover the several types of blockchains, maybe see them in a “listing view”, make sure that to take a look at our Web3 Wiki! Moralis’ Web3 Wiki is one of the best place to discover blockchain networks, NFT instruments, platforms, DeFi dapps, and so on! For a quick introduction to our Web3 Wiki, learn our “Dapp Retailer” article!