When using the wallet, you will find a variety of DApps. The blockchain browsers we introduced in the last issue belong to DApps, so what are they? How is it different from ordinary apps?
DApp was proposed by Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin and his partners in 2015. The original intention was to create everyone’s blockchain in the form of DApp. That is to create a decentralized application that combines non-tamperable smart contracts on the blockchain platform, thereby saving manpower and money.
In short, this is an application that adds smart contracts.
We are all familiar with this application, that is, the application installed on a smartphone, and the WeChat we often use is this application. DApp is D + App, D is the first letter of decentralization, DApp is a blockchain-based application. Therefore, it has the characteristics of decentralization, openness and transparency, and non-tampering.
How do we understand these characteristics?
Decentralization
The traditional App requires a team to operate. If the team is gone one day, the server will shut down and you will no longer be able to log in to the App. For example, you posted a message on Twitter, and bombarded the network all at once, and it was paralyzed. At this time, users can only use it after the server is repaired. However, after the repair, Twitter determined that your news was illegal information and deleted it directly in the background, which is also a drawback of the centralized app.
Unlike DApp, it is a distributed application based on blockchain, which has the characteristics of decentralization. Compared with traditional apps, DApp does not have a central point, which means that DApp will not stop services due to the downtime of the central point server, so there will be no network paralysis. Even if the team developing this DApp is gone, as long as the blockchain is still there (nodes are still there), we can still use this DApp.
Just like Bitcoin, although we do not know who its development team is, and there is no fixed team in operation and maintenance, Bitcoin is still in an unshakable position. From another perspective, the operation and maintenance cost of DApp will be greatly reduced through the distribution of nodes.
Openness and Transparency
There will be a lot of sweepstakes in the app, but most people find that they are not “lucky.” We often question whether there are private operations on the platform, such as whether the random draw is random, whether all the prizes in the event have been issued, the probability of winning, etc.
But in DApp, these can be checked through the block browser. The lottery rules will be written into the smart contract and stored on the blockchain. In this way, we will know very well what probability the lottery is carried out. At the same time, we can also check the actual winning situation. When all these data are open and transparent, we have no reason to doubt the fairness of the draw.
Non-tampering
On the blockchain network, if someone wants to modify the data, more than 51% of the nodes need to agree unanimously, which means that no one can easily tamper with the data, and the DApp is the same.
For example, in the past few years, a game called “Explosion”, a treasure knife can sell tens of thousands of yuan. As long as the game manufacturer changes the code, it can produce tens of thousands of them, earning money in minutes. In a centralized network, privileges are so capricious.
The blockchain game DApp is built on the underlying blockchain development platform. The rules of the game are that developers write smart contracts and store them on the blockchain, and developers cannot modify them. Player equipment and rewards are issued according to the provisions of the smart contract, and ownership belongs to the player. Therefore, on the blockchain network, the characteristics of non-tampering ensure fairness to a certain extent.
In short, we can summarize DApp as:
DApp = front end + smart contract.
● Not controlled by a single entity because it does not have a central point;
● No need to pay fees for third parties, because there is no central trust issue;
● Will not stop service because a single machine is down, because it is not running on any centralized server;
● There is no delay in transactions because of the use of smart contracts.
Of course, the relationship between DApp and App is not a substitution. App has matured after many years of development. As far as the current situation is concerned, DApp still has a long way to go in terms of both the number of applications and the number of users. There are reasons for a bear market, high barriers, and multiple reasons for the lack of people in the blockchain circle.
But it is undeniable that the blockchain technology has brought us huge imagination space, we need to give DApp more time and space to let it grow. It is believed that as the performance of the underlying blockchain continues to improve, there will be more, more practical, and more useful DApps in the future.
