Top Smart Contract Platforms 2022 (by Volume)

What are Smart Contracts?

A smart contract is a computer-generated program or a code which is executed automatically when the terms and conditions of the contract are met. These contracts cannot be altered as there is no room for any middleman. 

With the rise of DeFi or Decentralized Finance in 2020, a new type of investment has emerged. For the smooth functioning of DeFi, capital has to be deposited as collateral in the liquidity pools. Therefore, TVL or Total Value Locked indicates the capital’s impact on Dapps’s profits. Also, holding more TVL, indicates that the platform is the leader of the smart contract platform.

Ethereum is known to be the home of smart contracts and hence holds the highest share of about 65.17% of the total value locked. Earlier the Ethereum dominance was more than 90% but with the inception of other platforms like BinanceSmartChain, Tron, Avalanche, Solana etc, the TVL has been diversified. 

However, Ethereum is still the leader of the DeFi space with huge projects being deployed over it. 

Summary

Crypto	24Hr Change	Current Price
Ethereum	+2.13%	$1660.76
Ethereum Classic	+2.06%	$36.24
BinanceCoin	+5.92%	$318.90
Solana	+3.31%	$40.28
Cardano	+1.66%	$0.51
Polygon	+3.02%	$0.9194
Polkadot	+3.49%	$8.38
Waves	+12.60%	$6.35
Tron	+2.62%	$0.06962
Chainlink	+4.41%	$7.74

Additional Read: Top Cryptos to Watch this Week

Ethereum

Ethereum is considered the home for smart contracts as a majority of platforms run on this chain. There are more than 44 million smart contracts deployed on Ethereum since its genesis which makes it a pioneer in the DeFi space. As the Merger is fast approaching, the die-hard fans of PoW plan to maintain the original network to protect their billions of investments. 

⬡ DAILY WRAP-UP ⬡

⛓️ Integrations on #BNBChain and #Ethereum ⛓️

• @LULU_Markets | VRF | Verifiably random in-game crop harvest
• @popilart | VRF | Provably fair NFT randomization pic.twitter.com/c9d8guttXZ

— Chainlink (@chainlink) August 5, 2022

The NFT black market is suspected to emerge as a POW fork for Ethereum while many onlookers remain sceptical about whether the fork will survive for long.

Additional Read: Ethereum Merge Update

Ethereum Classic

Ethereum Classic is usually called Bitcoin with smart contracts as it works on the Proof-of-work mechanism. While some of the ETH miners have made their transition to ETC protocol ahead of PoS Merger, AntPool, the world’s leading BTC Mining pool, announced $10 million in funding for Ethereum Classic Ecosystem.

Delighted to be in Miami today with @leonlv2028, CEO of @AntPoolofficial, as Antpool announced their $10M USD investment into the #ethereumclassic ecosystem! pic.twitter.com/W65EoDuVyH

— Bob Summerwill (@BobSummerwill) July 26, 2022

Additional Read: Why is Ethereum Classic Rising Today

Binance Coin

BinanceCoin currently stands next to Ethereum in the list of the most valuable smart contract tokens. Stader Labs, a non-custodial smart contract-based staking platform that offers to-stake solutions recently launched its staking token BNBx on the BNB chain.  

Stader is supercharging the yield on your #BNB⚡

This is your chance to earn upto 100%+ APY in EARLY STAKING🚀

Here are 5 things you should know about Stader and our #BNBx launch: 👇 pic.twitter.com/03S28KzRea

— Stader.BNB (@stader_bnb) August 4, 2022

BNB is a staking product specifically for the BNB holders and the value of BNBx is dependent on the number of people choosing to stake with BNBx. The BNB is witnessing a rise in its value by more than 6% at the press time 

Solana 

Solana is said to be a high-performing and fast-developing blockchain which supports the development of different types of smart contracts. The smart contract platform powers a wide range of dApps. Opensea, the biggest NFT marketplace, is among the 350 dApps deployed on Solana. However, the recent hack has shaken the entire crypto space, and in the recent update, the developers link the hack of specific Solana-based wallets to a critical bug in one wallet service provider. 

After an investigation by developers, ecosystem teams, and security auditors, it appears affected addresses were at one point created, imported, or used in Slope mobile wallet applications. 1/2

— Solana Status (@SolanaStatus) August 3, 2022

Slope Finance, one of the service providers mistakenly shipped the code that enabled the user seed phrase to be transferred to a malicious actor.  

Cardano

Cardano is among the emerging players in the DeFi space which has recently reached a new milestone of 3000 smart contracts for the first time. This development came ahead of the much anticipated Vasil Hard Fork which is constantly being rescheduled. However, according to the data on Cardano Blockchain insights, the no.of Plutus Scripts or smart contracts has reached 3031. 

Total number of Cardano wallets hits 3.5 million. https://t.co/03egRqZdxx #Cardano #ADA #cryptocurrency

— Finbold (@finbold) August 3, 2022

On the other hand, the platform also breached the milestone of 3.5 million Wallets amid huge growth in the development and upgrades over the years. While the crypto space was trading sideways, Cardano also registered an increase of 500K new holders in the last 6 months.

Additional Read: Cardano Vasil Upgrade

Polygon

Polygon is the most emerging Layer-2 blockchain which is working along the Ethereum blockchain. Recently, Polygon Smart Contracts made ZK-rollups compatible with Ethereum to increase the use cases of the token. 

We are proud to announce a giant leap forward for Ethereum scaling and ZK innovation.

Introducing Polygon #zkEVM, the first EVM-equivalent ZK L2.

Today we’re releasing a complete implementation, fully open-source, and we’re just getting started.

[1/6] pic.twitter.com/P929DRCT1y

— Polygon – MATIC 💜 (@0xPolygon) July 20, 2022

With the launch of ZK, Ethereum is expected to outpace VISA in the coming days as the fees are expected to drop by 90% and the transaction throughput could increase by 40-50 transactions per second. This could shoot up the efficiency of the entire platform.

Additional Read: Polygon ZkEVM

Polkadot 

Polkadot, recently accomplished the Parachain auction, and a prarchain, Astar Network collaborated with Alchemy Supernode crypto API for easier creation of Web 3 Decentralized Apps or dApps. On the other hand, another parachain Moonbeam recently announced its integration with the interchain AMM osmosis. 

1/ 🧪 Moonbeam <> @osmosiszone cross-chain integration is now ⚡️ LIVE ⚡️ via @axelarcore, enabling one-click swaps between the two chains.

This brings together @Polkadot & @Cosmos — connecting two of the biggest interoperable ecosystems in the space 💪

— Moonbeam Network (@MoonbeamNetwork) July 23, 2022

This integration is believed to enable the cross-chain swaps with the Cosmos ecosystem that could allow the users to send funds & data between two chains. 

Waves

Waves’ smart contract is a little diverse which includes Smart Assets in their Smart Accounts. The Waves explorer rolled out its new update 4.2.0 which converts addresses and assets between Waves & Ethereum. 

Dear community, the Waves Explorer update is here. What’s new in 4.2.0:

🔷 converters for addresses and assets between Waves and Ethereum blockchains
🔷 improved display of data in spreadsheets + new interface
🔷 optimized network requests

👇👇👇 pic.twitter.com/2WKpFwxBLY

— Waves 🌊 (1 ➝ 2) 🏄‍♂️ (@wavesprotocol) August 3, 2022

In recent times, the native stablecoin USDN got de-pegged heavily which resulted in heavy user funds. However, the community has approved to reboot of the non-custodial protocol Vires Finance. 

Tron 

Tron is among the altcoins which have posted gains in the last 6 months while the crypto space was swinging sideways. Considering the thriving DeFi on Tron, the platform recorded $11.3 billion TVL in July and more than 4000 dApps deployed. Hence made the smart contract platform the second largest public chain by stablecoin market cap & 3rd in terms of TVL. 

Tron recently announced Season 2 of Grand Hackathon 2022 which has recorded participants of over 1800. 

💻 The #TRON #GrandHackathon2022 set a new record for participants during Season 2️⃣ with over 1800 entries! 🙌

👌 “With the growing demand and success of our #hackathons, we intend on creating many more in the near future.” 🔥

Read the full article 👇👇https://t.co/bMdx8MuPES

— TRON DAO (@trondao) August 4, 2022

Similar to that of season 1, Tron DAO and BitTorrent Chain aim to inspire developers to achieve project goals. 

Chainlink

Chainlink is one of the popular players within the DeFi space. In the recent past, Chainlink has extended its support to a cross-chain bridge, a BNB Chain DEX, a yield aggregator on Solana, and an Ethereum L2. 

⬡ DAILY WRAP-UP ⬡

⛓️ Integrations on #BNBChain and #Ethereum ⛓️

• @LULU_Markets | VRF | Verifiably random in-game crop harvest
• @popilart | VRF | Provably fair NFT randomization pic.twitter.com/c9d8guttXZ

— Chainlink (@chainlink) August 5, 2022

Swingby integrated Chainlink’s Proof-of-Reserve to help secure Skybridge which is a decentralized bridge between Bitcoin, Ethereum & other chains. On the hand, Biswap’s Squid NFT World integrated Chainlink’s VRF. Further, Tulip protocol integrated Chainlink price feeds to help secure its aggregation platform on Solana.

Additional Read: Why is Chainlinnk Price Rising Today

Conclusion

Collectively most of the smart contract platforms have witnessed a huge drop since the beginning of 2022. However, the extreme negative market sentiments have also fueled a notable reduction in the TVL. Therefore, the volumes are expected to increase once the market settles to some extent. 

How to Invest in the Top Smart Contract Platforms in 2022 (by Volume)

Investing in any of the smart contract platforms is pretty simple, just download the CoinDCX app on your smartphone. Later enter your details and get verified. Once done, fund your wallet and buy any of your desired smart contract tokens like ETH, ETC, BNB or DOT, etc. 

Data as of 5th August 2022