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
Table of Contents
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: 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.