Blockchains are the technology on which NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are minted. Their innate ability to store transaction and ownership information is the very thing that gives these digital collectibles life and enables the the trading of them. As such, choosing the right blockchain becomes important.

Currently, Sweet uses four leading blockchains to mint NFTs: Ethereum, Polygon, Tezos, and SLP.

Polygon is a blockchain technology running on the Ethereum network. It was created due to scalability issues in Ethereum. As a second-tier, layer on top of Ethereum it allows faster transactions at a lower cost than the main Ethereum blockchain, while at the same time, maintaining the high level of security as Ethereum.

While enjoying its high security, yet lower operating costs, Polygon also has the benefit of reducing the carbon impact of NFTs via use of a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) network. In comparison to other blockchains, Polygon consumes just 0.00079 terawatts (TWh) of electricity per year. To put that in perspective, one transaction on Polygon is the equivalent of watching a 30-60 second video on Youtube. The Polygon tokens standard is called ERC-721.

Tezos is an open-source proof of stake (PoS) blockchain that was released in 2018. As another blockchain based on PoS, it is fast and scalable, with very small transaction fees. Tezos emphasizes its eco-friendliness, as it uses two million times less electricity than Ethereum and less than 1 XTZ to mint an NFT. The blockchain is capable of facilitating as much as up to 40 transactions per second (TPS), for less than a penny per transaction. The Tezos token standard is called FA2.

The Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP for short) is an open source token platform built on the Bitcoin Cash blockchain. As such it does not have its own native token (which means you do not need to acquire other currencies to use it). SLP tokens are easy to issue, send, receive, and manipulate using Bitcoin script, making them the a good platform for token projects. The Simple Ledger Protocol token standard is called SLP.

Launched in 2015, Ethereum is the most famous NFT blockchain. Ethereum is the driving force behind the two popular token standards, ERC-721 and ERC-1155. These two standards have formed the foundations for the majority of existing NFTs. In general, it is an excellent technology for NFTs, however since the blockchain throughput is small and the commissions on the expensive side, Ethereum can be a costly tool to use to mint NFTs. Further, despite its effort of moving towards a Proof of Stake model, Ethereum can still be one of the most energy demanding blockchains.

To learn more about how Sweet makes choices about which blockchain to use, read on in our Help Center.