Non-fungible tokens are blooming today, with even celebrities rushing to assign their songs, videos, photos, or even tweets as NFTs. The new concept promotes popularity to blockchain and blockchain development. It also presents new challenges for the industry. Blockchain developers are often trying to improve the tools used in this process to meet the business needs of their clients. This is how Flow Blockchain was created.
While Ethereum is prominent and familiar, Flow blockchain is somewhat new, although this blockchain has its advantages as well. Want to take a closer look at this novelty and analyze how it differs from Ethereum? Here we help you analyze these blockchains and find out which platform – Ethereum or Flow – is more suitable for NFT projects.
Ethereum Blockchain
When you try to get an explicit opinion of Flow Blockchain vs Ethereum comparison, you need to recognize the basic differences. Let's start with the discussion on Ethereum. Ethereum is the second-largest blockchain platform powered by blockchain technology known for its native cryptocurrency, called ether, or ETH, or simply Ethereum. The distributed nature of blockchain technology makes the Ethereum platform secure, and this security allows ETH to collect value.
The Ethereum platform helps ether in addition to a network of decentralized apps, otherwise known as dApps. Smart contracts, which are derived on the Ethereum platform, are a major component of how the platform functions. Many decentralized finance(DeFi) and other applications use smart contracts in the intersection with blockchain technology. The Ethereum team created a new system to use the more flexible solidity language, breaking the underlying model of the bitcoin system.
Ethereum is presently used as the underlying platform for several decentralized applications, with the NFT project being no exception. Ethereum leads in decentralized applications launched and numerous daily active users.
Flow blockchain
Although the Flow blockchain was launched in 2020, it is considered by many to be the successor to Ethereum. Created at Dapper Labs by the creators of the popular cryptoKitties game, Flow was initiated when cryptoKitties clogged the Ethereum network with a user base of just 10,000 users. Flow was intended to create a blockchain platform that can accommodate billions of users on its decentralized applications.
Flow is a fast, decentralized blockchain that drives the development of decentralized applications and NFTs. Like other blockchains, Flow has its native currency, known as Flow. Flow is a reserve asset used to pay transaction costs and stake on the network. Like most blockchains, Flow started its resource-oriented programming language, Cadence, which has some different features that make it eligible for smart contract development.
Flow vs Ethereum: Which is the higher selection for NFT?
It is impossible to overestimate the role of Ethereum in increasing the popularity of NFTs. With the basics of Flow and Ethereum out of the way, it is time to begin the face-off. Let's compare the two platforms to see which one is more convenient, efficient, economically viable, and profitable at present.
Scalability
In Ethereum and Flow
Any developer who has ever tried to create an application using Ethereum is familiar with its scalability problem: the throughput of the Ethereum network is only 13-15 transactions per second, making it quite insufficient for large-scale use.CryptoKitties developers also experienced this inefficiency. Their game became so prominent and successful that Ethereum could no longer deal with the large influx of users.
When creating Flow, the major goal of the developers was to sort out the problem of scalability while maintaining decentralization of the network and high security. While Ethereum 2.0 sees sharding as a way to scale the blockchain horizontally, the multi-node architecture of the Flow blockchain gives it an advantage over the Ethereum 2.0 network, which uses sharding, a mode of storing a single dataset across multiple databases. The various nodes present in Flow multi-node architecture are given below:
Execution mode: Handles all the calculations for each transaction on the network.
Storage node: Improves network connectivity and makes data accessible for decentralized applications.
Consensus node: Specifies the order of transactions on the network.
Verification node: Verifies the task done by the execution node.
On the Flow blockchain network, both execution and collection nodes are executed to increase throughput time and network scalability, while verification and consensus nodes are in charge of network accountability and safety.
Transaction fee
When choosing which blockchain to use for NFT development, one must consider the related transaction fees. Ethereum users pay a gas fee as a transaction fee for successfully implementing a smart contract. The fee depends on the complexity of the smart contract and the quantity on the network. On the Ethereum blockchain, gas fees are spent using the ethereum native cryptocurrency (ETH). On some days, the average fee is $50-$80 and can increase above.
Flow developers were not satisfied with the price of gas. But did they tend to reduce the transaction fees on their platform? Looks like they've been successful so far. Two fees are applied to transactions: one is for account creation, which starts at 0.001 flow(approximately $0.03), and the other is a transaction fee that starts at 0.000001 Flow.
Consensus Mechanism
Ethereum uses a proof-of-work (PoW) mechanism, in which miners oppose to see who will build more blocks. Miners can figure out cryptographic problems quicker than others, organize cryptographic connections between blocks, and share new blocks with the network, receiving Ether (ETH) as a result. A major problem with using PoW is its high energy requirement. A better option appears to be a Proof of Stake (PoS) mechanism, in which protocol validators stake ETH to contribute to transaction verification. Validators are randomly selected, create new blocks, share them with the network, and earn ETH. PoS will potentially deduct energy usage in PoW and gas charges.
PoS motivates participants to derive results from raising currency value. PoW, on the other hand, encourages the participants or miners to gain the commission. PoW is also one of the vital reasons for the scalability issues in Ethereum. Therefore, Flow blockchain comes out on top as a winner, particularly for creators who are waiting to launch and provide opportunities with NFT projects.
Smart contracts
Ethereum is directly connected to smart contracts. Any transaction on a smart contract is documented on the blockchain and thus becomes immutable. On the other hand, some developers consider the need to modify the smart contract after deployment in case any issues are identified.
Flow helps to release smart contracts in a 'beta state' on their mainnet. Therefore, the original author of the smart contract can easily update the code in a step-by-step process. On the other hand, users can choose to use the code as it would on a specific instance. Users can also wait for the code to complete before relying on the code. Therefore, it is clear that Flow Blockchain offers better flexibility in terms of smart contract customization.
Account Model
The Ethereum blockchain account is based on 256 bits or 32 bytes four hexadecimal number private keys. A public key is developed when mathematical operations are executed on the private key. The public key is taken through a series of mathematical operations to attain a valid address. This is a directionless process, so a private key cannot be generated from a valid address.
In the Flow blockchain, account creation occurs automatically and can support multiple public keys. First, the public and private keys must be developed either through the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA), a variant of the Digital Signature Algorithm that uses Elliptic Curve cryptography, or through Secp256k1 curves, which are used in bitcoin. The parameters of the elliptic curve to be taken are Public-key cryptography.
Each Flow account can have 1 to n public keys related to it. For each public key, there will be a private key indirect possession of the account holder.
On the Ethereum blockchain, smart contracts are deployed in their accounts, and these accounts do not have private keys. However, on the Flow blockchain, accounts can have many smart contracts deployed at the same time.
Another difference in the account model of these two blockchains is the means to track tokens and smart contracts. Technically, an Ethereum account can follow all tokens and smart contracts it has interacted with using Ethereum logs, but Ethereum does not give a single store for the account assets in smart contracts. Flow, though, does just that: the resources on the Flow blockchain are "first-class citizens" and you can track all the smart contracts your resources interact with.
Working philosophy
Ethereum developers envision the Ethereum blockchain as a universal, base platform that can be used to expand applications for a variety of purposes, such as tokenizing real assets like NFTs, developing financial instruments, and developing currencies. Ethereum developers are looking for means to increase the security and scalability of the ethereum blockchain. Smart contract development expects a difficult process with a huge number of methods as every unnecessary action has a cost. The main task of smart contract developers is to find a balance between the application architecture and the traits of Solidity.
The creators of Flow came about their philosophy as a result of the experiences they grew while working with other blockchains, especially Ethereum. With Flow blockchain, developers now focus more on writing business logic, rather than focusing on complex specifications.
You can get a succinct summation of the differences between Flow Blockchain and Ethereum in the following comparison table.
| FLOW | STANDARDS | ETHEREUM |
| 1,000 tps targeting a large. audience. | Scalability | 13-15 tps, difficult to scale. |
| Account creation fee starts at 0.001 flow (about $0.03), transaction fee- at 0.000001 flow. | Transaction fee | Around $20, depending on the complexity of the smart contract and how busy the network is. |
| Pos, the preferred option for NFT projects implementation. | Consensus Mechanism | PoW in the process of moving to the PoS protocol. |
| Smart contract authors can update the code and make it immutable later. | Smart contract | After smart contract execution, it cannot be changed. |
| Created automatically by blockchain and can support multiple public keys. | Account model | Created based on a private key. |
| Developers can focus on business logic problems instead of blockchain and its language. | Working philosophy | Smart contract development is a compromise game, with developers constantly having to strike a balance between familiar code architectures and Solidity peculiarities. |
What does the future hold for Ethereum and Flow?
Ethereum has ensured its position as the first and most prominent general-purpose blockchain. It allows you to use smart contracts, tokenize assets, issue unique tokens (including NFTs) and build complex dApps. Ethereum's popularity is also increasing as a result of its unified standards, which make it susceptible to combining into the Ethereum network.
The promise of solving a major scalability problem, the upcoming Ethereum 2.0, could pull developers back into their saddle and allow the platform to maintain its position as the main center for large-scale NFT projects.
On the other hand, the creators of Flow are at the forefront of the current NFT craze. Successful NFT projects and crypto games such as the NBA Top Shot could allow developers to use Flow for future projects and bring global susceptibility to the platform.
Flow's potential goes beyond these trending applications. As of now, developers continue to build tools and services to make Flow the biggest platform for consumer apps with exceptional scalability, composability, and user experience. As a general-purpose blockchain with DeFi support, it has the most potential to grow within its ecosystem.
To Wrap it all up,
Both Flow and Ethereum are suitable platforms for a wide variety of applications. Each of them has its advantages and drawbacks, especially when it comes to NFT project development. Compared to head-to-head, both blockchains positively take the highest lead in some aspects.
Consider all the described pros and cons of both blockchains and decide which one will bring you the greatest benefits. The choice is yours, but a small reminder: each project is unique and has its characteristics that must be carefully considered to choose the right technology. Don't miss the NFT wave and start building your app today!
