"DAPPs" - What are these? 🤔
Hello readers! Hope your day is going well so far. If you are someone who uses the internet ( well duh!! ), I am pretty sure you would've come across this word a lot these days - "DAPP". So, what the hell is this?
Well, dApps also known as "Decentralized Applications" are applications that run on blockchains or peer-to-peer(P2P) networks instead of relying on a single computer system.
Centralized Apps vs Decentralized Apps
Let's compare these two types of applications.
Centralized Apps are in control of a single authority, whereas dApps do not have a system of a "single authority", as the name suggests it is distributed among its users.
Centralized apps run on a single or multiple servers owned and operated by the parent organization. DApps on the other hand run on blockchains or P2P networks.
USER <==== Data ====> SERVER
Centralized Apps: A user will interact with the app by sending and receiving data back and forth from the company's server.
USER <==== Data ====> USER
Decentralized Apps: Users engage in transactions directly with one another instead of relying on a central authority.
Understanding structure of a dApp
Just like normal applications, dApps also have backend and frontend parts. As mentioned they run on blockchains hence their backend code is written on blockchains like Ethereum, Solana, etc. On the other hand, their UI can be developed using any language and can be modified to communicate with code on the blockchain.
Advantages of dApps
- They are not governed by any "Central Authority".
- They are resistant to censorship.
- They are easy to scale.
- Open Source
- Users have control over their data.
- They accept cryptocurrency as payment.
Are dApps the future?
Web 3 and blockchain have seen exponential growth in recent years, which has made dApps very popular for their huge number of benefits. The idea of not relying on a central authority that governs our data over the application agrees with many people. This idea not only enhances data security but also lets the users have control over their data by making transactions transparent.
Though dApps seem to be an amazing alternative to current standard apps, they come with some disadvantages too and there is a lot of room for improvement. This kind of ecosystem is still in its early stage and there are many concerns too like - effective scaling, user-friendly interfaces, and many more ...
Another major problem is to modify the dApp, as we know smart contracts once deployed on the blockchain cannot be modified and hence are immutable, which makes it really hard to update dApps.
coming back to the question...
To be very honest, there is still no correct answer to this question. It will take a good amount of time to make the audience shift to a decentralized ecosystem. We can think of it as the future in making.
What are your takes on dApps being the future?
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