XinFin vs Ethereum- What’s the Better Alternative?

ruslan wing
9 min readJul 20, 2020

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XinFin vs Ethereum: learn the difference between these crypto giants & if XinFin is a better Ethereum alternative in this full XinFin vs Ethereum guide.

So, you’ve heard about two of the most popular smart contract blockchains, but want to know which is better in the XinFin vs Ethereum battle? Or maybe you want to find out how the two technologies compare? Well, you’ve come to the right place as I am going to tell you everything you need to know!

In this XinFin vs Ethereum guide, I am going to start by explaining the basics of each project, followed by an overview of how each blockchain performs. This will include things such as transaction times, transaction fees, and scalability.

After that, I will then give you a simple break down of how transactions are verified without a third party. This will include a comparison between the Proof of Work model used by Ethereum, and the XinFin Delegated Proof of Stake model used by XinFin Hybrid Blockchain.

Finally, I will give you my own opinion on what I think the future holds for each blockchain. So, by the end of reading my XinFin vs Ethereum guide, you will be able to decide what the best alternative is!

What are you waiting for? Let’s start by finding out the basics of each blockchain!

Contents

  • 1. The Basics
  • 1.1. What is Ethereum?
  • 1.2. What is XinFin?
  • 2. Performance
  • 2.1. Ethereum
  • 2.2. XinFin Hybrid Blockchain
  • 3. Reaching Consensus
  • 3.1. Ethereum
  • 3.2.XinFin
  • 4. XinFin vs Ethereum: What does the Future Hold?
  • 5. Ethereum vs XinFin Hybrid Blockchain: The Conclusion

The Basics

What is Ethereum?

Ethereum was launched in 2015 by a young Canadian-Russian programmer called Vitalik Buterin. It is a blockchain platform that allows people to send and receive funds, without the need for a third party, such as a bank.

The Ethereum project became the first blockchain protocol to install something called ‘smart contract’ technology, which allows strangers to agree on a trust-less environment. The technology is based on pre-defined conditions and once these are met, the smart contract can release the funds automatically without the help of an intermediary.

To give you an idea of how much potential this has, take a look at the following example.

  1. James owns a farm. He decides that he wants to take out insurance if it doesn’t rain for more than 7 days.
  2. Instead of using a third party, James decides to enter into a smart contract.
  3. To activate the smart contract, James deposits the insurance fee.
  4. The smart contract can analyze thousands of web pages to check the weather history.
  5. If it doesn’t rain for 7 days or more, the smart contract will pay out James automatically. If it does rain, then James loses his insurance fee.
  6. All of this is possible without a third party!

The above example can be used to benefit multiple industries, including banking, energy, gambling, and even political elections!

Ethereum also has its cryptocurrency called Ether (ETH), which is traded on most cryptocurrency exchanges. In total, there are just over 100 million coins in circulation. Although there is no limit to the number of coins that can be issued, Vitalik Buterin has suggested that he will probably restrict more coins from being created.

Just like Bitcoin, the Ethereum blockchain is decentralized, meaning that nobody controls it. This prevents any single person or authority from changing or amending the data that is posted to the blockchain.

Instead, transactions are confirmed by the Ethereum community, who in return, are rewarded for contributing their extra computational power. I’ll talk about this in more detail later on.

So, now that you know some of the basics of Ethereum, the next part of my XinFin vs Ethereum guide is going to discuss the basics of XinFin Hybrid Blockchain!

XinFin Hybrid Blockchain is a scalable blockchain-powered via XinFin Delegated Proof of Stake (XDPoS) consensus and used commercially by companies globally. XinFin achieves 2000+ TPS, 2-second block time, and ~$0 gas fees without compromising decentralization.

Our mission is to accelerate the onboarding of millions of users by empowering today’s applications with technology that masks the friction of Blockchain, all while retaining its underlying benefits.

The XinFin blockchain and its product ecosystem allow businesses to build high-performance, feature-rich projects to support speed, privacy, usability, and liquidity.

Every Dapp running on Ethereum can be easily ported to XinFin Network.

For more details please checkout

Medium:- https://medium.com/xinfin/deploy-smart-contract-on-xinfin-testnet-through-xinfin-remix-and-xinpay-dfbbf9dcc3f7

https://medium.com/xinfin/get-started-with-xinpay-crypto-asset-bbd817e1ed46

https://medium.com/xinfin/xinfin-remix-develop-smart-contracts-for-the-xinfin-blockchain-b3c330727528

Video:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUi2_kfv1Ko

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvzxHs6_EOQ

Performance

Ethereum

As the first and original smart contract blockchain, it is important to understand how it handles transactions. Firstly, it takes an average of 16 seconds for a transaction to be verified on the public blockchain.

This includes a movement of funds, as well as confirming smart contracts. It makes no difference where the sender and receiver are located, the transaction time is always the same. This is impressive, as it can take up to three days for a bank to process an international payment.

So, what about transaction fees? When Ethereum was first launched in 2015, it was possible for the network to verify a transaction at a cost of less than 1 cent. As time has gone by and more people have started to use it, this has slowly increased.

The most expensive period was back in December 2017, where it cost an average of $4 to send a transaction. This made Ethereum unsuitable for transferring small amounts. Fortunately, this has since been reduced to less than $1, however, this can easily go back up if the network experiences a busy period.

The most worrying issue for the Ethereum blockchain is the scalability of transactions. Scalability refers to how well a network can handle lots of transactions at one time. For example, Visa can process up to 50,000 transactions every second, and the banking industry uses systems that can do even more!

However, in the case of Ethereum, the blockchain is only able to handle a maximum of 15 per second. This is a major problem, and if not resolved, it won’t experience global adoption. Luckily for ETH investors, the Ethereum team is working on a few different solutions to this problem which I will discuss later.

Anyway, now that you know how Ethereum performs, the next part of my Xin

Fin Hybrid Blockchain vs Ethereum guide is going to look at how XinFin Hybrid Blockchain compares!

XinFin Hybrid Blockchain

XinFin is an EVM compatible blockchain powered by the scalable XinFin Delegated Proof of Stake (XDPoS) consensus mechanism that allows every Ethereum smart contract to run with almost instant transaction confirmation. 108 Masternodes secure the XinFin Hybrid Blockchain and allow for the following:

  • Token holders deposit 10 Million XDC to become a Masternode Candidate
  • Masternodes create blocks in the round-robin and use double validation to prevent collusion
  • Masternodes finalizing blocks are incentivized

High Performance

Massive acceleration of blockchain performance is one of the most important key features of XinFin. With the XDPoS consensus protocol, XinFin provides:

  • At least 2,000 TPS while still enhancing security through Double Validation
  • 2-second block-time and transaction confirmed within 4 seconds

Double Validation

Double validation provides an additional trustworthy validation layer for security enhancement through provable uniform distribution decentralized randomization. Specifically, when a block is created by a Masternode, it must be verified by another Masternode that is randomly selected among the set of Masternodes before being added to the blockchain. Double validation strengthens the security, reduces the risk of forks, and nothing-at-stake attacks, making XinFin unique among blockchains.

Reaching Consensus

Ethereum

Before I continue, I just wanted to make sure that you understand what I mean by “Consensus Mechanism”. As blockchains are decentralized, they can verify transactions without needing to use an intermediary.

Different blockchains reach consensus in different ways. So, they all confirm transactions as valid, but in different ways.

The consensus mechanism used by Ethereum is called Proof of Work, which is the same as other popular blockchains such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin. Here’s how it works:

The blockchain generates a random puzzle that must be solved before the transaction can be confirmed. However, this puzzle is so difficult that no human could solve it. Instead, it requires a computer (‘node’) to solve.

Anyone that decides to contribute to the Ethereum network can do so by connecting a GPU device to the network. These people are known as “Miners”, and there are thousands of them all competing to be the first to solve the puzzle. Whichever device gets there first, gets the Ether reward!

Although this is a great system to keep the network decentralized, there are some major issues. Firstly, because the puzzle is so difficult, the computational power required is high. This means that it consumes a lot of electricity, which is expensive and bad for the environment.

Also, the 15 transactions per second scalability issue mentioned in this XinFin vs Ethereum guide earlier is due to the limits of Proof of Work.

This is why the Ethereum team are planning to change their consensus mechanism to something called Proof of Stake. Not only is Proof of Stake better for the environment, but it also allows the network to process more transactions.

Ethereum is also looking to install two new protocols called “Sharding” and “Plasma”, which will increase the number of transactions the network can handle. Ultimately, it is hoped that these solutions will allow Ethereum to process thousands of transactions per second.

So, now that you know how Ethereum transactions are processed, the next part of my XinFin Hybrid Blockchain vs Ethereum guide is going to look at how XinFin does it!

XinFin Hybrid Blockchain

Unlike Ethereum and its Proof of Work model, XinFin does things differently. The consensus mechanism that is used to support the network is called the XinFin Delegated Proof of Stake (or XDPoS). To clarify, the Proof of Stake system allows anyone with a certain amount of coins to help verify transactions on the network. The chances of winning the reward

XinFin uses an innovative consensus method called XinFin Delegated Proof-of-Stake which provides an incentive to all XDC holders to play an active part in staking across a network of 108 Masternodes.

XinFin Network is an EVM compatible blockchain powered by the scalable XinFin Delegated Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism that allows every Ethereum smart contract to run with almost instant transaction confirmation. 108 Masternodes secure the XinFin network blockchain.

So, now that you know how each blockchain confirms transactions, in the final part of my XinFin Hybrid Blockchain vs Ethereum guide, I am going to let you know my opinion on what the future holds!

XinFin vs Ethereum: What does the Future Hold?

Before I continue my XinFin vs ETH guide, I just wanted to make it clear that any prediction I make is nothing but my personal opinion. The most important thing is that you conduct your independent research.

Firstly, whichever side you are on in the XinFin vs Ethereum argument, both projects have performed well in the cryptocurrency market.

Ethereum is the second most popular cryptocurrency in the world, just behind Bitcoin. In 2017 it increased its value by more than 10,000% and reached an all-time high of $130 billion in market capitalization. Not only this, but hundreds of cryptocurrency tokens have been built on top of the Ethereum blockchain and it is also home to over a thousand dApps.

When it comes to XinFin Hybrid Blockchain, although it is still in its early days, it has performed exceptionally well. As I mentioned earlier in my XinFin vs Ethereum guide,

However, XinFin is yet to achieve anything like what Ethereum has achieved. With that being said though, if XinFin can achieve their goals, then it will be a significantly better blockchain than Ethereum.

So, all you can do is check for regular updates on both of the blockchains’ development progress!

Ethereum vs XinFin: The Conclusion

And that’s the end of my XinFin vs Ethereum guide. As per usual, I hope you have found this enjoyable, but most of all — knowledgeable!

If you have read this guide from start to finish, you should now know how the XinFin and Ethereum blockchains perform technically, as well as what they have planned for the future.

Not only this, but you should also know the difference between Proof of Work and Delegated Proof of Stake, and how these two consensus algorithms are different.

As I mentioned earlier, the XinFin vs ETH debate is something that divides opinions. I understand both sides of the argument because while XinFin Hybrid Blockchain has the potential to become the best performing blockchain in the world, Ethereum is already the second most popular cryptocurrency in the industry. So, it is a difficult one to call.

Ultimately though, I think it is a battle of the tech. So, let’s see how well each blockchain performs in a year, then maybe we will be able to make a decision.

Anyway, I hope my guide has helped you clear up a few unanswered questions. Now, with your new-found knowledge, which blockchain do you prefer and why? Or do you feel like there are better Ethereum Alternatives than XinFin? Feel free to let me know in the comments section below!

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