Blockchain Platforms Introduced, Each in One Sentence

This post lists some general- and special-purpose blockchains nowadays available with a short description in one sentence. Readers can have a quick understanding of what a blockchain network is built for and what uniqueness that blockchain has. I also give links to beginner friendly resources as learn materials.

General purpose blockchains

Blockchains for general purpose usage.

Bitcoin/BTC

The world’s first cryptocurrency and blockchain network without requiring a trusted third party for electronic peer-to-peer transactions.

Further reading: Bitcoin, How does Bitcoin work?

Ethereum/ETH

The world’s programmable blockchain having both a native cryptocurrency ETH and a decentralized global platform where developers can create applications and issue crypto assets known as Ethereum tokens.

Further reading: What is Ethereum?

Hyperledger Fabric

Hyperledger Fabric is a permissioned blockchain that offers modularity and versatility for a broad set of industry use cases, accommodating the diversity of enterprise use cases through plug and play components of consensus, privacy, membership services and more.

Further reading: Hyperledger Fabric Datasheet.

Special purpose blockchains

Blockchains specifically designed for one usage scenario.

Stellar Lumens/XLM

Stellar is a blockchain based public payment network aiming to provide a single network connecting banks, payment systems, and individuals quickly and reliably for currencies payments.

Further reading: Learn Stellar, Intro to Stellar.

Orchid/OXT

Orchid network enables a decentralized virtual private network (VPN) for privacy protection, allowing users to buy bandwidth from a global pool of service providers through probabilistic nanopayments of OXT token over Ethereum blockchain.

Further reading: Learn Orchid, How It Works.