Sustainable Blockchains that are Zero cost

Blockchain Networks like any other system needs to generate revenue to be sustainable. Users of transactions pay some cost when they want to include a transaction in the block chain’s ledger. However, there are various factors which affect how they do this. Factors such as algorithm, miners, frequency of transactions, allocated fuel, scalability of the chain etc. affect the price someone pays to get their transaction in the ledger. This price can therefore be fluctuating and makes it harder to predict how long a user might have to wait.

Popular Blockchain Networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum have recently become too expensive. The cost of transaction on Ethereum has recently been more than $10. Similarly, the cost on Bitcoin has gone beyond $50. Miners influence the cost of transaction and the chance if a transaction gets processed on Bitcoin. Algorithm and scalability of the chains is another important factor. For example, mining a transaction on Bitcoin and Ethereum requires solving complex work. Proof of work, in case of Bitcoin, therefore determines the cost of transaction. However, in the case of Proof of stake chains, the older users determine the cost.

Low cost / Zero cost

Low cost alternatives to chains like Etherum are Dogecoin, Salona, Polygon, Algoron, etc. They offer fixed costs or very low costs as compared to Ethereum and at the same time offer high number of transactions processed per second.

Recently, many new chains have gained popularity because they offer better scalability, speed or costs per transaction. For example, Nano chain offers zero cost transactions by eliminating miners. It uses a Directed Acyclic Graph model to achieve this. So, it also offers instant transfer of payments. Nano chain has now many integrations. Other chains like Obyte offer fixed costs as an alternative. The cost in Obyte is connection costs and no transaction costs. Some chains offer more features while offering low or zero costs. These features include smart contracts, Dapps, custom tokens etc.

However, not all of them have been adopted very well yet. Some chains, consequently, have not been tested enough for security, scalability yet.