Ethereum (ETH) is the top most utility coin in the world. Currently, it hosts more than 1500 DApps. Also, there are more than 500 ERC20 tokens that are based on ETH. Therefore, the current record holder for DApps goes to ETH.

However, due to transactions related to DApps , ETH's network is frequently congested and transaction fees on ETH network soars.

ETH can currently process up to 15 transactions at its highest capacity. However, recently ETH co-founder, Vitalik Buterin claimed that future upgrades "Sharding" and "Plasma" will able to process 1M transactions on ETH network. Those upgrades can take more than two to three years.

Recently, the largest ICO in the cryptocurrency world ended with EOS crowdsale. Moreover, EOS recently switched to main network. Though currently there is no DApp that runs on EOS, Block One is hiring developers aggressively to build DApps on EOS mainnet.

On the otherhand, STEEM holds the record for the most popular DApp- Steemit.com in the cryptocurrency world. It ranks highest in Alexa ranking for any Dapp and also boasts highest number of accounts, more than a million.

Though more than 350 DApps currently run on STEEM network, only 0.15% of the network is used. STEEM is already capable of 10K transactions per second. Both STEEM and EOS are based on graphene protocol which has a roadmap for 1M transactions per second in the future.

<center>![steem_scalable.gif](https://ipfs.busy.org/ipfs/Qmde4zjWZrFstQqUeq29kitaivb6aVUXc4cgU6ixUU45ky)</center>


STEEM is also developing ETH's ERC20 like token simply called Smart Media Token (SMT) along with Oracles protocol for verification on blockchain.

Currently, ETH has 130 times the market cap of STEEM (e.g. $45B vs 0.35B). But STEEM has highest transactions per day record, fee less transactions and capable of 10K transactions per second (TPS). STEEM already has one-fifth of DApps compared to ETH. Moreover, with SMT, DApps and ICOs on STEEM can only increase.

![Ned_Scott_Twitter.jpg](https://ipfs.busy.org/ipfs/QmNYfEcHJQf7e9VZpmEAxtsEejyN3UCJQ1bHvnebNwkWVY)


Currently, STINC developers are concerned about building a world-class infrastructure rather than aggressive marketing such as TRON, EOS or Cardano. Once the autobahn (i.e. highway) is built, millions of cars will ply through it daily without congestion (e.g. STEEM). STEEM blockchain will be able to support 1000s of DApps and SMT (e.g. tokens). It will be one of the most powerful backbones for future DApps.

It could be possible that due to social nature of STEEM blockchain, it will see more growth in DApps than ETH. If SMTs, Hivemind and Oracles are released in 2018, it is quite possible that STEEM will break the record for number of DApps and take its crown from current holder ETH.

**Disclaimer: This opinion is not a financial advice, it my personal perspective and opinion. Please seek professionals for financial decisions.**

<center>![Steemit-engine-ccn.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmc1LPE11bNp3kiPSMDFRjGTHw1KXVqP5bHrFUYmYY1WHm/Steemit-engine-ccn.png)


Image sources: Most images are open sourced (e.g. Pixabay, Wikimedia etc.) with Creative common license. Some images are used with due courtesy to respected owners.

Thanks for reading.
@riseofth
Cryptominer since 2013, occasional trader and tech blogger