After the emergence of Bitcoin (BTC), people started to realize that blockchain – its underlying technology – could be used for other purposes, giving rise to Ethereum (ETH) and making it a powerful competitor to the flagship decentralized finance (DeFi) asset. With time, more networks and cryptocurrencies appeared, threatening to unseat Bitcoin’s runner-up.

In this context, there are several such digital assets that have stood out as potential ‘Ethereum killers’ due to the challenge they present to the second-largest crypto asset by market capitalization, as well as their perceived capability to possibly even replace the Ethereum coin as the second most famous asset on the crypto market.

Solana (SOL)

Solana (SOL) has emerged as a strong contender to Ethereum’s domination thanks to its lower gas fees and high transaction rates (although Ethereum is catching up with its network updates), as well as the use of the Proof-of-History (PoH) consensus mechanism with other more conventional algorithms.

As things stand, Solana is currently changing hands at the price of $24.04, up 1.35% in the last 24 hours, in addition to gaining 14.59% over the previous seven days after it revealed a new solution promising to reduce the cost of on-chain storage. It has also gained 18% on its monthly chart, as well as a whopping 142.31% since the year’s turn, according to data retrieved on April 13.

Polkadot (DOT)

Describing itself as a ‘Layer 0 blockchain,’ Polkadot (DOT) has recently filed a trademark application for the blockchain communication platform ‘Polkadot Converse’ as well as updating its ecosystem with Kagome 0.9.0, a Polkadot Host implementation written in C++.

Its price at press time stood at $6.42, increasing 2% in the past 24 hours, 0.26% over the previous week, as well as 5.21% on its monthly chart. In terms of its year-to-date (YTD) gains, Polkadot has added 46.73% to its value, as the recent charts demonstrate.

Avalanche (AVAX)

Another Proof-of-Stake (PoS) ecosystem like Ethereum, Avalanche (AVAX) integrates three interoperable blockchains together, providing greater scalability. On April 6, the team launched its Cortina upgrade on the protocol’s testnet, promising improved Avalanche’s X-Chain support for crypto exchanges and faster development, among other benefits.

Currently, Avalanche is changing hands at the price of $28.54, which demonstrates a 2.38% climb in the last 24 hours, in addition to increasing its value by 3.03% across the week and 12.59% in the previous month, whereas its gains since January 1 amount to 69.89%.

Polygon (MATIC)

Layer 2 scaling solution that uses the Ethereum blockchain, Polygon (MATIC) has had a massive surge in gaming activity in March, making it the second-largest gaming blockchain after WAX (WAXP), according to the report by DappRadar.

At present, Polygon is changing hands at $1.12, recording a 2.35% increase in the past day, although it has lost 2.04% during the previous week and 6.16% across the last 30 days. However, those losses are offset by the year-to-date (YTD) gains of 46.69%

Tezos (XTZ)

A self-upgradable and energy-efficient PoS blockchain that also deploys Liquid Proof-of-Stake (LPOS), Tezos (XTZ) has had multiple positive news this year, as well. First, it announced a partnership with Google Cloud, and then it unveiled the Mumbai protocol, one of its most significant upgrades to date, promising to push Tezos ahead of its competition.

Meanwhile, the Tezos price chart has been slightly choppy in recent days, at press time trading at the price of $1.11, up 0.53% on the day, despite losing 2.85% in the last seven days. On its monthly chart, however, Tezos has gained 1.30%, adding up to the 2023 increase of 52.54%.

Conclusion

Although the future growth in the value of digital assets can depend on multiple factors, the highlighted cryptocurrencies and their teams have demonstrated the capability to justify their status as Ethereum’s main competitors, guaranteeing more progress this year, accompanied by strengthening prices.

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