Running a business can be tricky nowadays, and keeping them in the market for years is even more challenging than that. It is a huge competitive world we are living in. We ought to discover new ways and implement new ideas to make your company hit big. One way is through Dapps.
Dapps or Decentralized apps are like regular web apps but with a twist. They offer additional features with advanced security when compared to standard apps. (Not literally, but a part of it.) they also provide better accessibility to the company’s customers and can be owned by anybody on the internet.
Have a look at Dapp.com’s 2018 market report:
Wikipedia defines Dapps as a computer application that runs on a decentralized computer system.
Are you interested in knowing more about Decentralized Apps? Let’s dive in deep and learn about them in detail in this blog.
- What is a Decentralized App/ Dapp?
- Purpose & features of Decentralized Applications
- Adoption of Decentralized Applications
- What are the benefits of Dapps?
- What are the cons of Dapps?
- How are Dapps useful for businesses and entrepreneurs?
- Conclusion
Table of Contents
What is a Decentralized App/ Dapp?
Decentralized apps or Dapps run either on blockchain or P2P (peer-to-peer) networks of computers and just individual computers like the regular apps. Additionally, they are not controlled or owned by a single authority.
To understand it in simpler terms, you can take the example of regular applications, such as Zomato or Ola. These apps are owned and operated by a single entity, and they have full authority/ ownership of those apps. They are solely responsible for making the application, running it, controlling it, and modifying it as per their requirements. There is no limitation to who can use the application, but on the other end, the backend is only governed and controlled by the developing entity.
Dapps, on the other hand, runs on a P2P network or blockchain network. Common examples of Dapps are Bitcoin, BitTorrent, Tor, Popcorn Time, etc. These applications run on computers, a part of the P2P network, where multiple users can consume content, feed content, or seed content or do them simultaneously.
If we talk in terms of cryptocurrencies, here, Dapps run on a blockchain network. Here the apps run in an open-source and decentralized environment. Also, they are free from control and interference by any single authority.
To understand it better, let’s take an example. If we develop a Dapp that works similar to Twitter and upload it on the blockchain network, then any comment posted in it cannot be deleted even by the app creators once it is posted online.
Some more information on Decentralized Applications
We will understand the terms we used to describe Dapps, such as decentralized, deterministic, turning complete, and isolated.
Decentralized: It means Dapps are independent, and a single entity cannot control them
Deterministic: Dapps perform the same functions no matter the environment they are executed in.
Turning complete: Turning complete means the Dapps can perform any action if provided with the required resources.
Isolated: It means that they are executed in a virtual environment, and there is no physical entity for running Dapps. These virtual environments include Ethereum Virtual Machines. If the smart contracts happen to have a bug, that will not hamper or stop the normal functioning of the blockchain network.
Purpose & Features of Decentralized Applications
The purpose of developing Dapps are as follows;
- It provides a trustworthy environment for the users.
- Dapps lowers barriers to access services.
- To develop an open market with liquidity.
- Standard features of decentralized applications are as follows;
- They have their backend code running on a decentralized peer-to-peer network instead of typical apps where the backend codes run on centralized servers.
- They are generally open-sourced, decentralized, in compliance with a specific protocol agreed on within the community, and incentivized through providing tokens to validators of the dApp.
- Dapps may have front-end code and user interfaces written in any language, making calls to the backends.
- Its front ends can be hosted on decentralized storage like Swarm.
- Dapps are stored and run on the blockchain system.
- It may run on distributed computing systems such as Bitcoin or Ethereum.
Adoption of Decentralized Applications
Any online industry can apply Dapps, including gaming, banking, or even gambling industries. You can find the list of Dapps on various cryptocurrency data analytics platforms such as State of the Dapps, Holdex, Dapp.com, Live Coin Watch, CoinGecko, and DAppRadar.
Dapps are adopted into the following versions, including;
- DeFi Dapps
- Dapps browsers &
- Gambling Dapps
Now let’s learn about them in detail:
DeFi Dapps
DeFi Dapps or Decentralized Finance apps are Dapps that focus on the financial sector industries. It performs financial functions on blockchain. DeFi Dapps allows users to;
- Go “long” or “short” over a range of assets
- Borrow or lend money to others
- Earn interest or trade coins in a savings kind of account without a centralized intermediary
Dapp browsers
All dapp browsers have a unique code that runs on a specific platform only. Moreover, all Dapps work on standard browsers such as Google Chrome, Internet Explorer or Firefox. They are designed to open only on specific websites with customized codes adjusted to open only a particular type of dapp.
Gambling Dapps
As the name implies, gambling Dapps are designed for the gambling industry. These Dapps allow faster and smoother transactions and low casino operations costs. This results in a lower house edge for the customer and provides more anonymity & provable fairness.
What are the Benefits of Dapps?
The advantages that Dapps provides are given below;
- Increased privacy: Dapps provides increased security than typical applications
- Zero downtime: Dapps always can serve clients after smart contracts are deployed at the core of the app and the blockchain
- Resistance to censorship: no entity on the network can block a user from submitting transactions, reading data from the blockchain, or deploying Dapps.
- Complete data integrity: thanks to cryptographic primitives, data stored on blockchains is indisputable and immutable. No malicious actions can be taken, like forging transactions or other data once they are made public.
- Verifiable behavior/ trustless computation: Smart contracts are analyzed and are guaranteed to work in predictable ways, so you do not need to trust any central authority.
What are the Cons of Dapps?
Dapps provides better features when compared to regular applications. But they also have a few disadvantages like;
- Less accessible user interface
- Delay in-app actions
- The cost of transactions are not transparent
- Limitations in scalability
- They are not user friendly
- Not everyone understands the functioning of Dapps
Why is Dapps Best for Business and Entrepreneurs?
One of the most popular uses of Dapps in business is decentralized cloud storage. It simply means that some people like to store their data on decentralized servers rather than on typical centralized servers like Google Drive or Dropbox.
They are highly used to store sensitive data. This is where decentralized cloud storage comes in handy. Here, Files are encrypted and accessible only with a private key that provides high security and privacy.
Furthermore, if you are a talented musician, you can use Dapps to produce your music on them and get paid more than any other platform. This is also the case with other creative fields such as writing or entertainment.
Dapps can also be used to rent an apartment for vacations where users need to pay less when compared to other platforms.
Conclusion
Currently, Dapps are not being used in their full power, but they can grow and expand in the future. Business owners and entrepreneurs must keep a keen eye on the evolution of Dapps in the coming future if they want to succeed.
Businesses can take the benefits of this platform to grow and expand their services. Also, they can use Dapps to benefit their business in many ways, which we will eventually learn with the advancement of the Dapps in the coming days.
Moreover, the most significant benefit Dapps provide is decentralized and thus entirely dependent on intermediaries. As a result, it will provide better customer service, rewarding both the customer and business owners. If you are looking to develop dApps for your business, you can contact the best Ethereum developers in India. They will help you out in it and get the best business app for you.
