Blockchain Comparison
18 March 2017
Update: For a more detailed and frequently updated comparison of Nxt and Ardor with other blockchain platforms, also see this Comparison of Blockchain Platforms.
Category
Nxt
Ardor
NEM
Ethereum
Bitcoin
Launched
2013
2018
2015
2015
2009
Programming Language
Java
Java
Java
C++ / Go
C++
Open APIs
✓
✓
✓
✓
✗
Block time
1 Min
1 Min
1 Min
15 Sec
10 Min
Tokens
1 Billion
1 Billion
9 Billion
94 Million
21 Million
Consensus
POS
POS
POI*
POW**
POW
Basic Building Blocks
Nxt
Ardor
NEM
Ethereum
Bitcoin
Generate Token
✓
✓
✓
✓
✓
Text Messages
✓
✓
✓
3rd party
✗
Encrypted Messages
✓
✓
✓
3rd party
✗
Share Encrypted Messages
✓
✓
✗
✗
✗
Prunable Data
✓
✓
✗
✗
✗
Data Storage
40K
40K
✗
Fee Based
80 bytes
Name Aliases
✓
✓
✓
3rd party
✗
Account Properties
✓
✓
✗
3rd party
✗
Multi Signature Transactions
✓
✓
✓
3rd party
✓
Phasing
✓
✓ + logic
✗
3rd party****
✗
SPV Wallet
✗
✗
✗
?
✓
Light Client
✓
✓
✓
?
✗
Smart Contracts
Nxt
Ardor
NEM
Ethereum
Bitcoin
Programmable
✗
✗
✗
✓
✗
Assets
✓
✓
✓
ERC20 tokens
✗***
Decentralized Trading
✓
✓
✗
✗
✗***
Restricted Tokens
✓
✓
✗
3rd party
✗
Voting
✓
✓
✗
3rd party****
✗
Marketplace
✓
✓
✗
3rd party
✗
Anonymity
Coin Shuffling
Coin Shuffling
✗
✗
Coin Mixers
Advanced Features
Nxt
Ardor
NEM
Ethereum
Bitcoin
Parent/Child architecture
✗
✓
✗
✗*****
✗
Separation of security token from operational token
✗
✓
✗
✗
✗
Transaction Pruning
✗
✓
✗
✗
✗
* Since NEM is not fully open source the exact inner working of POI is unknown
** Ethereum plans to switch to POS sometime in the future but there is no concrete time line for this
*** Assets and trading on top of Bitcoin are implemented using other protocols like OMNI and Counter Party
**** In theory, Ethereum smart contracts can mimic this unique NXT and Ardor functionality but developing such smart contract using the limited tools provided by Ethereum would be very difficult
***** plasma.io paper was released recently, perhaps in response to Ardor, but actual implementation is years away
