Top 3 Public Blockchains Compared: Ethereum, NEAR and Tezos

In early 2021, our engineers compared three public blockchains they were building on at the time: Ethereum, NEAR and Tezos. Much of that analysis described networks that no longer exist in the same form. Ethereum has left proof of work, NEAR has rebuilt its sharding, and Tezos has upgraded its protocol more than a dozen times since then.

This updated comparison keeps the same three networks and the same criteria: scaling, smart contracts, speed, nodes and validators, applications and staking. All figures are as of September 2026 and come from each network's official documentation or live on-chain data.

What Is a Public Blockchain?

A public blockchain is a ledger that anyone can read, send transactions to and, subject to the network's rules, help validate. Records are grouped into blocks linked by cryptographic hashes, copied across many independent nodes and agreed through a consensus protocol, so no single company controls the data. Once a block is final, changing it would require overpowering the network's consensus, which is what makes public chains a neutral place to issue tokens, settle trades and run shared applications.

Public vs. Private Blockchains

• Access. Anyone can join a public chain; a private or permissioned chain admits only approved participants.
• Trust model. Public chains rely on economic incentives and open validation; permissioned chains rely on the identity and contracts of known operators.
• Performance. Permissioned networks usually process more transactions with fewer nodes, while public chains trade some throughput for openness and censorship resistance.
• Transparency. Data on public chains is visible to everyone, which helps auditability but requires care with personal or commercial information.

For regulated consortia or internal systems, a permissioned ledger may fit better; our guides to choosing a distributed ledger technology and to permissioned blockchain frameworks cover that side of the decision.

The Three Blockchains Compared

Ethereum is the largest smart contract platform. It has run on proof of stake since the Merge in September 2022 and scales mainly through layer-2 rollups. NEAR is a sharded proof-of-stake layer 1 focused on fast finality and easy onboarding. Tezos is a proof-of-stake chain known for on-chain governance: it upgrades itself through protocol amendments voted on by its bakers, without disruptive hard forks.

These are not the three largest networks by value. As of 30 September 2026, CoinGecko ranks ETH second by market capitalization (about $327 billion), NEAR 21st (about $7.0 billion) and Tezos 137th (about $346 million). They remain a useful trio because they represent three different design choices: rollups, native sharding and self-amendment.

Scaling

The 2021 version of this article said all three used sharding. Today, only NEAR does. Ethereum removed shard chains from its roadmap and instead makes it cheaper for rollups to publish data, most recently through PeerDAS in the Fusaka upgrade of December 2025, as listed in its upgrade history. NEAR shards natively, and its mainnet ran ten shards as of September 2026 after the stateless validation upgrade of 2024. Tezos scales through Smart Rollups, including Etherlink, an EVM-compatible layer 2 built on Tezos.

Smart Contracts

Ethereum offers the most mature environment: Solidity and Vyper, a vast library of audited contracts and the largest developer pool. NEAR contracts are written in Rust or JavaScript, and Solidity code can run on Aurora, an EVM environment on NEAR. Tezos contracts compile to Michelson, a low-level language designed with formal verification in mind; most developers write in higher-level languages such as SmartPy (Python-like) or LIGO, or use Etherlink for Solidity. Our overview of blockchain programming languages compares the options in depth.

Speed and Finality

Old throughput claims like “100k TPS” or “30-minute blocks” are best ignored; block time and finality are the figures that matter for users. Ethereum produces a block every 12 seconds and finalizes after two epochs, roughly 13 minutes. NEAR's documentation cites finality in about 1.3 seconds. Tezos has used 6-second blocks since its Tallinn upgrade in January 2026, and under its Tenderbake consensus, described in the Octez documentation, a block is final once two more blocks are added on top of it.

Nodes and Validators

Running a validator is permissionless on all three networks, with different entry points. An Ethereum validator requires at least 32 ETH, and several independent client implementations keep the network resilient. On NEAR, the top 100 validators by stake produce blocks and chunks, and further validators check shard work without storing full state. Tezos validators, called bakers, stake tez to produce and attest blocks, and tez holders can delegate to them without giving up custody.

Governance and Upgrades

Tezos stands apart here. Its self-amendment process runs through five automated voting periods, and bakers approve every protocol upgrade on-chain. According to the TzKT indexer, Tezos has activated more than 20 protocol upgrades since 2019, most recently Ushuaia in June 2026. Ethereum coordinates upgrades through Ethereum Improvement Proposals, core developer calls and client releases. NEAR upgrades are shipped in nearcore releases and activate once enough validators have adopted the new protocol version.

Applications and Activity

Ethereum still dominates activity: DefiLlama shows about $53 billion locked in DeFi on Ethereum mainnet as of 30 September 2026, compared with about $244 million on NEAR and about $21 million on Tezos. Ethereum is the natural home for stablecoins, DeFi and tokenized assets that must plug into existing liquidity. NEAR has built a niche in consumer apps and chain abstraction, where fast finality and named accounts help. Tezos has attracted digital art, gaming and institutional pilots, and now leans on Etherlink to reach EVM users.

Staking

All three networks are secured by staking rather than mining. ETH holders stake directly or through staking services; NEAR holders delegate to validators, whose rewards are targeted at 2.5% of total supply per year; tez holders stake with or delegate to bakers. Reward rates move with participation and network rules, so check the current figures on each network before planning around them. If staking is part of your product, our guide to building a DeFi staking platform covers the mechanics.

How to Use This Comparison

Treat these criteria as a starting shortlist, not a scorecard. Before you commit, test the transactions your product will actually run, check that your target users' wallets and exchanges support the chain, confirm you can hire developers and auditors for its languages, and price the full stack, including indexers, RPC providers and bridges. Our guide on how to choose the right blockchain turns these checks into a step-by-step process.

Summing Up

There is no single leader among the three. Ethereum wins on application breadth, liquidity and tooling; NEAR wins on speed and user experience at the base layer; Tezos offers the most formal on-chain governance and a clean upgrade path. For most financial products that must reach existing users and liquidity, Ethereum or one of its rollups is the default, and NEAR is a strong alternative when fast, cheap interactions matter most. For a deeper look at two of these networks, read our NEAR vs Ethereum comparison.

If you are choosing a chain for a new product, 4IRE's blockchain consulting team can compare the options against your requirements, and our NEAR development and Ethereum engineers can take the build from there.