Is Ethereum a monopoly?

[Ozero]

Of course, the ethereum network is not exclusive when using smart contracts. We can see this even now, when in case of difficulties with high transaction fees in this network, many users began to switch to other platforms, including those using the same EVM for smart contracts. For market participants, this opportunity is an escape from high transaction costs, so I don’t see anything wrong with other platforms using EVM ETH. If there was no such possibility, we would now have to work very hard with cryptocurrency.

[Abiky]

The reason why other networks have the spotlight is because of the overwhelming transition fees on eth network, if this can be resolved all these other networks will fall behind and eth will remain at the top like always, if they all rely on eth evm then they are not exactly doing anything totally different, look at polygon network getting choked, even Solana and bsc experience same few weeks back, in a way, eth is a monopoly considering the rest networks are not from scrap.

That's the point. So many alternative blockchains using Ethereum's EVM gives the second-largest cryptocurrency in the world a huge advantage on the market. They're no different than ETH other than being highly-scalable blockchain networks. If ETH scales with PoS and Sharding, then these alternative chains will be no more. Or if they survive, mainstream adoption will be at its lowest.

As I've said before, only a small number of smart contract platforms have their own proprietary language and virtual machine for the deployment and execution of decentralized applications. If the number of new projects built from scratch increases, then ETH's position as a monopoly will diminish. Otherwise, not. Imagine what'll happen if ETH disappears all of the sudden (which is highly unlikely at the moment). It will be complete chaos in the smart contracts space. At least, everything is decentralized and open source. As long as projects work together to help improve Blockchain tech, there should be nothing to worry about. Just my thoughts

[Coin-1]

I think that Ethereum was a monopoly in its economic niche until 2020.

In fact, ETH is the only top-rated coin that runs as a Virtual Machine for smart contracts written in the Solidity language and is currently based on the Proof-of-Work algorithm. ETC is also a PoW coin, but it is too weak.

It should be noted that cryptocurrencies are trusted because their developers publish the source code so that people can inspect all the functions and compile the executable themselves on their own computers. This means that anyone can download the source code and create his/her own coin.

As far as I remember, in 2018, the Binance team created their Binance Chain, but it did not attract much investors. In 2020, the team downloaded the Ethereum source code, modified it slightly, and created the Binance Smart Chain that relies on the Proof-of-Staked-Authority consensus. After that, investors pumped the BNB coin because BSC uses a long-established infrastructure for decentralized applications.

MATIC, AVAX and other similar coins have followed suit with BNB. They simply chose a new number for the ChainId field in the ETH transaction.

Thus, today Ethereum is not a monopoly in the global cryptocurrency market, but alternative chains are not a bad idea because their platforms complement the entire ecosystem.

[usekevin]

Ever since Ethereum launched a couple of years ago, smart contract platforms have been on the rise. There are many competitors on the market with their own unique features, aiming to take the crypto world by storm. While there are a wide variety of blockchain networks with smart contract functionalities, most of them use Ethereum's EVM as their base layer. If you do a little research, you'll see that the vast majority of alternative smart contract platforms use Solidity as the programming language for smart contracts. Coins like Avalanche, Polkadot, TRON, and even Polygon (MATIC) use Ethereum's EVM for the deployment and execution of decentralized applications. Only a small minority of smart contract platforms (eg: Cardano, EOS) have their own programming language and virtual machine (VM).

How would competitors "beat" Ethereum if they use the same EVM for smart contracts? It's like saying Microsoft's Edge browser will beat Chrome when it's based on Chrome's underlying engine (Chromium). If this keeps up, I'd imagine ETH keeping its position as the dominant force of Web 3.0 for a long time.

Do you think Ethereum is a monopoly? If not, why? Do you think alternative chains relying on ETH's EVM is a bad idea? Your input will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Ethereum play a important role after the place of bitcoin.When the price of bitcoin crosses the 10k mark,it was huge difference in the price of bitcoin.Later come project is Eth with less amount of the fees.When the market pump happened in the Ethereum,the new form of Binance Smart Chain.Waiting for the new platform over rich the BSC.

[poodle63]

Even if most of others similar smart contract platform are using EVM doesn’t mean that ETH have controls over them, it's still a separate blockchain and EVM is just a way for them to build their chain without reinventing the wheel.
I think these newly formed smart contracts platform always have good reasoning behind the screen and they are just trying to be efficient as possible and maybe it's because smart contract platform that are similar to ethereum is easier to use because
most of the people are already getting used to having the same interface as ethereum.

[LUCKMCFLY]

Eventually it is not a monopoly, I think that the ETH network is not the leader in project networks for the simple fact of having very high Fees, if we start to review the number of projects that there are on the ETH network there are many despite , the competition lies in the NFTs, NFT games and the metaverses, it is not known if the problem of the ETH network will be solved with the ETH2.0 which is quite long and difficult to develop, this due to the congestion that exists, makes Some months I had to pay an exaggerated fee to make a withdrawal, the truth is that I didn't really want to.

[lixer]

Do you think Ethereum is a monopoly? If not, why? Do you think alternative chains relying on ETH's EVM is a bad idea?

Monopoly is when there is a sole platform in the market, and I don't think ethereum is, presently we have other platforms although they are the most prominent. And since they are the most prominent relying on ETH EVM is not a bad idea. They win and ethereum win, it is a win win for the both platforms.

I am sure what are the new features like new innovations that etehreum will bring, other platforms will simply copy and again compete with ethereum itself. This is what exactly happening around ethereum as in open-source environment, unable to patent the new things, will reduce the chances of remaining monopoly for sure.

[glendall]

in the past maybe yes eth monopolized the market but not now , there are many smart contract projects that are just as good in the market today and provide the same service or can be considered better than eth ,  problem in  eth still dominates in this aspect , maybe due to being the project's first smart contract gave it that edge, or some developers preferred the network, however, the power shifted to other smart contract projects. can be given an example BNB is currently the toughest rival of ETH in my opinion

[jeungo]

I can’t say that this is an undeniable leader, any leader can lose. Remember Nokia phones at the turn of the 00s, and where they are now, so is Canon in the field of photography, or Kodak. So everything, as always, will be decided by time and whether the developers will be able to keep the level of ideas and their implementation. You can lose, but at the moment it's definitely not.

[Fesatmas]

IMO probably in general Ethereum is the most difficult Monopoly to avoid when the market always makes it uncompetitive with other altcoin prices. The existence of Ethereum seems difficult to find a worthy competitor. There may be other speculations from Solana/Polygon but it's still easy and also lacking in terms of market takeover. Ethereum has a number of issues but that doesn't make it any less reputable in the eyes of traders and investors alike. The reason is because of the quality that Ethereum offers and the altcoins on their network seem to be considered elite altcoins.

[Abiky]

There are other projects that have been making rounds with their chain and it's not Ethereum only is the player on this field. There are a bunch of them and people, investors and enthusiasts are seeing that upgrade for the other projects. And that's why I don't think that Eth itself is a monopoly. There are too many competitors already and we have to choose which we think is going to thrive and survive for so long because majority of us here are long term thinkers.

There may be other chains on this "field", but most of them use Ethereum's EVM for the deployment and execution of smart contracts. How can alternative platforms compete with ETH if they're using its underlying framework for dApps? Again, it's like saying Microsoft Edge will compete with Chrome when it's using Chrome's underlying web engine (dubbed Chromium). As long as the majority uses the Ethereum EVM, ETH's position on the market will remain untouched.

At least, there are a few smart contract platforms with their proprietary programming languages. Cardano, EOS, and even Zilliqa use their own VM for decentralized applications. We need more originality in the smart contracts space in order to reduce the risks of a single point of failure. More innovation = faster adoption of Web 3.0 in the mainstream world. As long as everything remains open sourced and decentralized, nothing else matters. Just my opinion

[Pejoh Asu]

I have to admit that tokens that use ERC-20 dominate the marketcap, in my opinion expert analysts around 65% of marketcap are ethereum and tokens that use ethereum transaction fees, but with so many new projects of course becoming competitors for ethereum so that doesn't happen.

[sana54210]

There may be other chains on this "field", but most of them use Ethereum's EVM for the deployment and execution of smart contracts. How can alternative platforms compete with ETH if they're using its underlying framework for dApps? Again, it's like saying Microsoft Edge will compete with Chrome when it's using Chrome's underlying web engine (dubbed Chromium). As long as the majority uses the Ethereum EVM, ETH's position on the market will remain untouched.

At least, there are a few smart contract platforms with their proprietary programming languages. Cardano, EOS, and even Zilliqa use their own VM for decentralized applications. We need more originality in the smart contracts space in order to reduce the risks of a single point of failure. More innovation = faster adoption of Web 3.0 in the mainstream world. As long as everything remains open sourced and decentralized, nothing else matters. Just my opinion

Using the same EVM and being the same blockchain are different things. Some projects might use ETH's EVM but they are not related at all. It is like saying "every project that uses phyton are smashed together and will fail if one fails", which we all know is not like that. There could be this program that they all use, but they could all add or remove anything in there, and that is why I believe that projects which are different will always be better pathways for ETH itself as well.

I am not saying that ETH is not a monopoly, all I am saying is that it is not a monopoly because of this reason, there are other reasons for sure but this one is not the main one. I believe that ETH being able to still get projects even with 100+ dollar gas fee for many new stuff to just start is the scary thing, whereas there are other networks which costs less than 1 dollar to start, and yet projects still prefer ETH, that is the real scary thing.

[Wahyuihib]

I have to admit that tokens that use ERC-20 dominate the marketcap, in my opinion expert analysts around 65% of marketcap are ethereum and tokens that use ethereum transaction fees, but with so many new projects of course becoming competitors for ethereum so that doesn't happen.

That's right, I've studied this domain area, almost all good tokens use ERC-20, indeed many are currently their tough competitors, but I don't see good tokens having a high selling value, but in the long run the ERC network -20 must also think about the cost of gas which is too high, must be maximized with people's needs, otherwise it is not impossible that other competitors will be superior.

Actually a competitor from ERC-20 already exists, namely the BSC network, which offers very cheap gas costs during transactions. and also I think if the fees of the eth network don't change, then I'm sure users will use the bsc network in their overall transaction activities

[magneto]

Ever since Ethereum launched a couple of years ago, smart contract platforms have been on the rise. There are many competitors on the market with their own unique features, aiming to take the crypto world by storm. While there are a wide variety of blockchain networks with smart contract functionalities, most of them use Ethereum's EVM as their base layer. If you do a little research, you'll see that the vast majority of alternative smart contract platforms use Solidity as the programming language for smart contracts. Coins like Avalanche, Polkadot, TRON, and even Polygon (MATIC) use Ethereum's EVM for the deployment and execution of decentralized applications. Only a small minority of smart contract platforms (eg: Cardano, EOS) have their own programming language and virtual machine (VM).

How would competitors "beat" Ethereum if they use the same EVM for smart contracts? It's like saying Microsoft's Edge browser will beat Chrome when it's based on Chrome's underlying engine (Chromium). If this keeps up, I'd imagine ETH keeping its position as the dominant force of Web 3.0 for a long time.

Do you think Ethereum is a monopoly? If not, why? Do you think alternative chains relying on ETH's EVM is a bad idea? Your input will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Definitely not.

There are a ton of forks of ETH because it is open source, and they are doing very well with billions of dollars in market cap.

The fees on the ETH network means that it's actually not that feasible to use for DeFi or NFTs unless you have hundreds of thousands of dollars just lying around. Which gives rise to other solutions like FTM, BSC, etc.

[lepbagong]

I think it should also be realistic that ethereum is still the best so far, although that doesn't cover the fact that high cost constraints still haunt many people who are allergic to using ethereum based networks,
but existing competitors are also using the same.
so I guess it's still mostly tied to ethereum and can't untie it.
if there is anything else, because it is clear that coin support is not as expensive as ethereum which is certain if you experience something like ethereum which is already expensive it will happen too.
It's only natural that until now ethereum has continued to survive and be the best in altcoins, because the support continues.

[StarKay]

How would competitors "beat" Ethereum if they use the same EVM for smart contracts? It's like saying Microsoft's Edge browser will beat Chrome when it's based on Chrome's underlying engine (Chromium). If this keeps up, I'd imagine ETH keeping its position as the dominant force of Web 3.0 for a long time.

Do you think Ethereum is a monopoly? If not, why? Do you think alternative chains relying on ETH's EVM is a bad idea? Your input will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Ethereum is not a monopoly, competitors using EVM doesn't mean that they fully rely on Ethereum. It's just like saying because some of Apple's iPhone components are made by Samsung so Samsung is a monopoly.
If something is working and there are no better alternatives, there's nothing wrong in building in it. So far could you say that EOS and Cardano have been successfully built a platform that is better than EVM, I don't think so.

[Abiky]

Definitely not.

There are a ton of forks of ETH because it is open source, and they are doing very well with billions of dollars in market cap.

The fees on the ETH network means that it's actually not that feasible to use for DeFi or NFTs unless you have hundreds of thousands of dollars just lying around. Which gives rise to other solutions like FTM, BSC, etc.

Good point. There's nothing stopping other projects from copying ETH's model due to the way it was designed. Everything in the crypto/Blockchain space is open-sourced these days, so adopting ETH's EVM would be more beneficial than harmful for the original project's long-term sustainability. It's all a matter of improving existing technologies to help make crypto/Blockchain land a better place. With so many projects using the EVM as their backbone, it looks like Ethereum's Solidity programming language will become the standard of Web 3.0. I'm fine with that as long as decentralization wins in the long run. Who knows what will be of Ethereum in the future? Just my thoughts