Ethereum is trading for $3,293 and the price may be too expensive for you. There are two alternatives that you could buy at a much lower price. Plus, they are trying to be the cryptocurrencies to dethrone Ethereum.

Cardano and Solana are making a strong case to chase Ethereum and some believe they have a good chance of doing that.

What is Ethereum?

Let's start with Ethereum. Vitalik Buterin and eight other co-founders launched Ethereum in 2015 as a decentralized open-source blockchain. Buterin wanted Ethereum to be the global platform for decentralized applications with its own cryptocurrency, Ether. Ethereum serves as a platform for other cryptocurrencies and decentralized smart contracts.

One drawback to Ethereum is the high gas fees. Cardano and Solana are using that as an entry into this space.

Ethereum has 112 million tokens in circulation.

With the upgrade to ETH 2.0, users can stake their Ethereum and earn rewards until Ethereum 2.0 of approximately 4.5% to 7% annually.

In August 2020, Ethereum had 112 million ETH in circulation. Vitalek has burned over 260,000 ETH tokens. EIP-5900 was introduced to burn ETH. There is a gas fee that gets paid to the miners. This is intended to help lower the inflation on Ethereum. The transaction fees are adding up to the overall costs.

What is Cardano?

Charles Hoskinson was one of the co-founders of Ethereum but he left to create his own blockchain. Hoskinson created Cardano in 2017 to allow developers and innovators to help create change worldwide.

Cardano uses proof-of-stake (POS), which is less energy-intensive than the proof-of-work (POW) algorithm relied upon by Bitcoin. Although Ethereum is going to upgrade to PoS with ETH 2.0, this transition takes time.

Cardano enthusiasts who hold the cryptocurrency have the right to vote on any proposed changes to the cryptocurrency.

Changes to Cardano take time as changes are reviewed through a peer-review process. This helps the blockchain to anticipate any pitfalls.

Cardano has 45 billion tokens in circulation and the most recent price was $2.40.

What is Solana?

Solana was officially launched in 2020. This is an open-source project that wants to provide decentralized finance solutions.

The most prominent person in Solana is Anatoly Yakovenko. He has worked at Qualcomm and Dropbox as a software engineer. Anatoly teamed up with other members from Qualcomm to develop Solana.

Yakovenko developed the proof-of-history (PoH) consensus. This allows for greater scalability of the protocol's usability.

Solana is known in the cryptocurrency space because of the short processing time and smart contract execution that the blockchain offers. This cryptocurrency is drawing a lot of attention from institutions.

One of the goals for Solana is low transactions costs.

Solana has 489 million tokens in circulation and the most recent price was $180.75.

Final thoughts

With Ethereum prices rises even higher due to the gas fee, Cardano and Solana appear to be good alternatives. In the future, no one knows who will come out ahead.

Cardano and Solana could be in the run to move up and challenge Ethereum in the future. Plus with their lower price and costs, they may be a good alternative to add to your portfolio.

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Tom Handy is a top writer on Medium, former Quora writer, and father of two kids. He retired from the Army and sits on several non-profit boards. You can find him on Twitter @tomhandy1 and Life is Like a Game.

This article is for informational purposes only. It should not be considered Financial or Legal Advice. Not all information will be accurate. Consult a financial professional before making any significant financial decisions.

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