An Investor's Guide To Smart Contract Blockchains

Ethereum achieved a successful formula between cryptographic functions, blockchain technology, and smart contract programmability.Blockchains must have strong security traits, as they ultimately serve as the settlement layer for value across many users and transaction types.We believe that investing in smart contract blockchains offers exposure to a formidable disruptive force.Smart contracts’ value proposition is well-founded, as we discussed in our previous blog post Exploring the Disruptive Potential of Smart Contracts. They bring programmability to a value transfer infrastructure and have low-cost, fast, secure, and trustless properties. Despite being a technology in its infancy, the potential to disrupt sectors such as financial services, tech, and gaming is palpable, with applications across all areas gaining user activity.Smart contracts are deployed in compatible distributed ledger networks, typically smart contract blockchains, often referred to as layer 1 blockchains. Today there are a growing number of smart contract blockchains hosting ecosystems of composable applications that offer specific utilities, varying levels of throughput, security, and decentralization.The native assets of these platforms function as the common medium of exchange within the network and can represent a revolutionary shift toward a user-owned economy. In this piece, we introduce the major smart contract blockchains, the value behind their ...