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Over the last decade, we have witnessed tremendous growth in the field of technology. As a result, many of us have been hearing terms like cryptocurrency, bitcoin, and blockchain, which are among the foremost technological innovations of the 21st century.

Today, the concept of blockchain has started to become increasingly popular and being adopted globally. Now, you might be scratching your head thinking, why is there hype around blockchain technology? What exactly is blockchain and how has it revolutionized the world?

Well, in simple terms, blockchain is a special kind of database that is capable of storing information in a highly secure manner.

Now, the difference between a conventional database and blockchain is in terms of their working as well as the structure. While the former store's data in tables, the latter stores it in blocks that are chained together.

How Does Blockchain Technology Work?

The process of blockchain can sound a tad complicated, but we'll try our best to make it as simple as possible for you to understand it easily.

In the blockchain, the data or information is stored in clusters, which are technically called 'blocks'. Everything comes with a storage capacity, right? In this case, too, each block has a designated amount of storage space.

Once the storage space of a block is completely full, that particular block is chained with the previously filled blocks, hence the name assigned is blockchain.

Therefore, it is a growing list of records, known as blocks, linked with each other storing encrypted information.

It'll not be wrong to say that not all databases are blockchains but all blockchains are databases.

Also, the primary motive of blockchain is to store information that can't be edited. The concept originated in 1991 but the first real-world application that was implemented in 2009 with the birth of 'Bitcoin'.

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency and blockchain is a distributed database.

Bitcoin is powered by blockchain technology. The creator of Bitcoin stated it as a new electronic cash system without any involvement of a third party.

Moving on, as you are familiar with the concept of blockchain, let's understand its usage in the real-world!

An example that will help you to get well acquainted with the working is that of IBM. The tech giant has implemented a blockchain in its system known as Food Trust Blockchain.

But why? The reason behind this is to trace the process of food products from source to destination. There are certain materials or hazardous substances often mixed with food products. It disrupts the entire food chain. Sometimes, finding the source of the eruption of such content becomes tough.

To sort that out blockchain technology has proved to be a savior. A detailed analysis of the journey of food products can be carried out from source to its destination. You can track the exact place where any malign attack has taken place.
Beneficial, isn't it?
With that, here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of Blockchain:
Advantages

It is more accurate because there is no human involvement or any third-party presence

You can experience reliability, efficiency, and security

The transparent technology is to vouch for. Nothing is hidden from you, you have complete access to every data and information

It is also a very trustworthy alternative to banking

Disadvantages
Moving on, let us dive into what you are looking for!

Presenting you with,

List of 10 Top Blockchain Platforms

Here are the best blockchain platforms that you need to check out if you are interested in blockchain technology:

1. Stellar

Stellar is simply a blockchain technology-based ledger. More precisely, it is an open network to store and transfer money. The platform makes it possible to create and send all sorts of money including, dollars, pesos, and bitcoins. Also, if you are looking to build peer-to-peer payment apps, banking tools, you can do that with Stellar.

Stellar Consensus Protocol helps to reach consensus without the need to depend on a closed system to record financial transactions.

It has collaborations with some of the most renowned companies like ICICI Bank, NaoBTC, RippleFox.
Highlights
2. Ripple

Ripple was founded in 2012. The primary motive of the company is to provide a nexus for the banks, cooperative sector, and digital world through a blockchain network.

Also, the company is gradually expanding with some absolutely stunning features.

Nowadays, for global payments, advanced blockchain technology is being used widely. It is proficient in eliminating pre-funding by utilizing the powerful ability of XRP.

Ripple aims to provide efficient financial services to the majority of people and businesses. Some big names like American Express, MoneyGram International, Deloitte, and many more are making use of Ripple.
Highlights

Focus sector: Financial services

Ledger - No permission

Who governs them: Ripple Labs

3+ seconds for payment completion

0% failure rate

3. Ethereum

Ethereum was founded in 2013. It is a platform that assists you to handle digital money, applications, and global payments. It is known for executing smart contracts on a custom-built blockchain network.

Ethereum, a public blockchain platform, is becoming popular throughout the globe. It is the community-run technology that powers cryptocurrency, ether, and tons of other decentralized applications.

Additionally, the Ethereum Virtual Machine provides a run-time environment to smart contracts.

Ethereum uses Ether as its native cryptocurrency. It helps to boost the network. The extensive Ethereum community has made it easier for users to get all the essential updates and assistance in making the most of the Ethereum platform.

The companies that collaborated with Ethereum are, Microsoft, Intel, and JP Morgan.
Highlights
4. Tezos

Tezos is another incredible self-governing blockchain platform. It's an open-source platform for several assets and applications. There are certain barriers while working with blockchains such as open participation, long-term upgradability, and contract safety. However, Tezos works seamlessly to eradicate the aforesaid hurdles.

It is specially designed to deliver code correctness as well as safety for several assets. Tezos also offers Michelson, which is the native smart contract language that facilitates formal verification in cases related to nuclear, aerospace, and industries like semiconductor industries, etc.
Highlights
5. Corda

Corda is one of the best open-source blockchain platforms for businesses. It helps businesses to make direct transactions with guaranteed privacy using smart contracts.

Corda helps you to diminish the transactions and record-keeping costs. It assists you to streamline business operations too. It is a flexible and agile platform that scales and meets business needs.

The platform is supported by a robust community of developers who are working continuously to make enhancements and add new features.

The associated companies are Intel, HSBC, Bank of America, and many more.
Highlights
6. Quorum

Quorum is an incredible open-source blockchain platform.

You can rely on the Quorum open-source protocol layer and integrate product modules from ConsenSys, other companies, or even your own in-house development team to build high performance applications. The usage of different algorithms helps to process many transactions every second.

This platform is not open to everyone and is capable of handling applications that require high throughput and processing speed for facilitating private transactions.
Highlights
7. Openchain

Openchain is developed by Coinprism. It is an open-source distributed ledger technology highly recommended for enterprises that are willing to manage digital assets with something that secure, robust, and scalable.

It has zero transaction fees and validation is done by an asset administrator. Just like bitcoin, every transaction is digitally signed. The administrator assists to demonstrate the rules of the ledger. End-users can exchange values according to the specific rules on the ledger.

Openchain uses a consensus mechanism that differs from several other bitcoin-based systems. Openchain guarantees to be a more efficient system as compared to the ones that use proof of work.
Highlights
8. EOS

EOS is an extremely fast, flexible, and forward-driven blockchain platform. The platform provides industry-leading transaction speeds as well as a sub-second block time latency rate. It gives you the liberty of deploying public, private, with permission, and permissionless blockchain infrastructures.

Customization can be performed according to your business or application requirements. EOS is a great platform for developers as it provides an ever-expanding set of features, products, and much more.

The path followed by them to reach a consensus is by the use of multi-threading. It's a very authenticated platform where the permission levels are granted to save the data securely.
Highlights
9. Dragonchain

Dragonchain is one of the most secure and flexible blockchain platforms available in the market. It will help you to build flexible and extremely scalable applications. The ability to integrate highly advanced technology with the existing systems makes it a great choice.

It offers low transaction fees, exceptional performance, better security, and smart contacts.

The learning management system provides you with traceable proof of course progress, scoring, continuing education units, certification, and much more.

The GDPR and CCPA capable identity management platform helps to boost security, reduce the risk of customer PII storage, and ease down the process of authentication.

It helps to provide selective transparency to the internal employees, external third parties, and customers.
Highlights
10. Hyperledger Sawtooth

This seamless blockchain platform was founded by Linux Foundation with the help of IBM and Digital Asset.

It's an enterprise-grade platform that can be used for creating and executing ledgers. The platform allows the maintenance of digital data and information without interference from any central authority.

Hyperledger Sawtooth is a flexible as well as modular architecture. It detaches the application domain and the core system. Eventually, that will help the smart contacts in specifying some business rules for applications or projects.
Highlights
Conclusion

Blockchain technology is gaining immense popularity and acceptability around the world. The tremendous pace of its adoption is due to the unique features that it has to offer.

There are a plethora of different options available in the market. The enterprises must understand the requirements and then choose a suitable platform to build highly scalable applications.

We tried to present you with the best blockchain platforms in the market. Hope that the information provided in the article helped to solve your ambiguities.

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10 Top Blockchain Platforms to Explore in 2021 [Updated]

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Over the last decade, we have witnessed tremendous growth in the field of technology. As a result, many of us have been hearing terms like cryptocurrency, bitcoin, and blockchain, which are among the foremost technological innovations of the 21st century. Today, the concept of blockchain has started to become increasingly popular and being adopted globally.