What are DApps?
Nowadays the success of almost any company depends on its technological capabilities. The trend for mass adoption kick-started by Ethereum has enabled creating software known as decentralized applications, or DApps. Their absolute advantages such as flexibility, resilience, and transparency are making more and more people convert into the DApps community. This article reflects on why decentralization is a must these days and how it can render your software more efficient.
What is decentralization
As the majority of today’s most popular applications were built years ago, they follow a centralized model, but every day we see more and more decentralized apps to emerge. The word decentralization implies that nodes are not interdependent inside the network and do not instruct each other. In this case, if one of the nodes does not function, the others can still operate in contrast to a centralized model where a failure of one node leads to the failure of the whole system. Regardless of this obvious benefit of DApps, developers still disagree on the matter of their advantage over traditional applications. So now let’s have a closer look at what strengths can decentralization offers to the world of software.
Features of decentralized applications
It is commonplace to single out four main features of decentralized apps. First of all, they are supposed to have an open-source which means that any user can access the code for checking out their data. Being open-source, your app will bring you the trust of your users and maybe other people will contribute to the development of your product.
Secondly, such applications normally have their internal currency which serves as a means of incentivization and helps developers monetize the product. Traditionally, in order to use an application, you buy a subscription or pay transaction fees and so on. In contrast to that, DApps use their own currency as a means of payment inside the platform. For instance, if you bet on a team of your preference in a sports app, you will buy their tokens to do that.
Finally, the decentralization of an app allows it to function even if one of the nodes is not working. Therefore, a DApp will not be taken down in case of failure in contrast to a centralized application that relies on its server work.
What DApps can offer the world
There are different scenarios of DApps use but, roughly speaking, they can be divided into three main categories according to their market niche.
- Money management. Modern platforms allow users to make transparent and fast if not almost instant transactions and avoid cumbersome bank requirements. Transaction fee depends on the app from a couple of hours in case of Bitcoin to a few seconds if we talk about XRP.
- Control of business processes without human help. Such apps are used in different fields where it is beneficial to reduce the labor force, for example, in logistics: each cargo has a special chip that should be scanned upon arrival to automatically notify the customer.
- Decentralized autonomous organizations. All of the corporate decisions are programmed on the blockchain which allows skipping the part where a great deal of money is spent on bureaucracy and paperwork. Of course, it is not possible to run a firm fully relying on blockchain but at least it can save you some time and it is on its way to improvement.
In conclusion, let’s revise what benefits DApps have over-centralized applications and what they can bring to your business. In terms of money, decentralization makes the payment process faster and absolutely transparent which will help you to gain customers trust. Furthermore, they will stay anonymous while making a transaction in contrast to traditional bank payments. Certainly, blockchain offers a higher level of security of the data stored. In other words, decentralized applications turn a new page in the history of software.
