What are Decentralized Applications (dApps)?

What if the technology in your home would help you making money. In other words, imagine that one day all your stuff would rent itself out when you don’t use it. Your car, which is stationary for about half a day, sends a signal to interested parties that it is available and can be rented while you sit in the office. Or your solar panels sell the stored energy to someone else when you don’t need it.

This all sounds very lucrative and utopian, doesn’t it? At the moment it does, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t be a reality. After all, the era when applications will talk to each other and make decisions on your behalf has already begun.

There is an increasing shift in our daily interactions with software and hardware. Our technology is becoming increasingly autonomous. How do we ensure that they act in the interests of their users and not of themselves? How do we divide our trust towards these apps?

Thanks to the blockchain, we don’t have to worry about that. With the distributed nature of blockchain, trust in our applications is transferred and distributed to everyone on the same network. I trust you to secure the network because you trust me to do the same.

Thanks to Bitcoin, the invention of Satoshi Nakamoto, the decentralization of trust was possible for the first time. We’ve stopped relying on a central authority to make things happen the way they should. Thanks to the blockchain, we can program applications to work on our behalf.

Decentralized Applications (dApps) are one of these autonomous applications that will shape that world.

Decentralization

dApps (Decentralized Applications) are pieces of software that run autonomously on the blockchain. They are not much different from general applications running on the internet today and only differ in their ability to act autonomously. dApps can do everything traditional apps can do and they can also automate that process to fully meet users’ needs. With advances in blockchain technology, it is also becoming increasingly feasible to innovate applications to work for us.

A dApp looks the same as any other web-based application: the dApp performs the same functions according to the same predefined logic. What is new, however, is the linking of a public-private key infrastructure, which allows the dApp to have its wallet.

This makes it possible to build smart contracts into the application, give them some conditions, and then let them function completely independently. Once that is done, the application can pay, receive payments, execute contracts, and fulfil obligations.

On which platform can you build a dApp?

At this moment EOS remains the most active platform for dApp in terms of daily users, but Ethereum and also Cardano are also working with it. Thanks to its flexibility, Ethereum is lucrative for developers who want to experiment with how far they can go. Finally, in terms of average dApp usage, Steem is far ahead of its competitors. Steem is a blockchain-based social network that uses the commitment and connection of its users to help them use the network efficiently.

Ethereum

Since the beginning of its development, Ethereum has promised to take blockchain-driven decentralized applications to the next level.

Even though it has several competitors, Ethereum remains a very relevant platform for dApps.

EOS

EOS, which claims to be a blockchain without transaction costs, is very popular for the development of dApps. This is achieved through the ownership model of EOS, which users own and have the right to use resources commensurate with their stake, rather than having to pay for each transaction. So, essentially, if you own N tokens from EOS, you are entitled to N * k transactions.

Currently, the main applications built on EOS are based on gaming or gambling, but the network has promised more functionality in the coming years.

Cardano

Cardano is similar to Ethereum (mainly because developer Charles Hoskinson used to work for Ethereum).

Cardano’s approach is unique in space because it prides itself on scientific philosophy and peer-reviewed academic research. Even though not many applications have been developed on the platform, Cardano is about to make a name for itself within the dApp community.

TRON

Justin Sun, one of the most controversial figures in the crypto industry, has promised to make Tron a blockchain platform based on smart contracts and he wants to facilitate the transition from traditional to distributed applications.

In theory, Tron could process 80x more transactions per second than the Ethereum blockchain, making it very attractive. However, this is not the case at the moment.