Steemit CryptoAcademy Season 4 || Beginner's Fixed Courses: Task - 8 || Decentralized Applications (DApps) || By @jaspichman125

Hello professor @wahyunahrul, this is my homework post. Thanks for the wonderful presentation/lecture.

Homework Questions

• What are dApps? Explain the working system of dApps?
• What are the differences between dApps and other applications?
• Explain the advantages and disadvantages of dApps?
• How can dApps developers promote their apps?
• What should we pay attention to when using dApps?
• How do we find the information of a DApp that we want to know? Provide the steps (Screenshot required).

What are DApps?

Decentralized Applications (DApps) are groups of applications built on a decentralized network of computers that combines a Smart Contracts and front-end interface. As the word decentralized implies, DApps are applications that run on top of blockchain networks. They can be designed for several real-world use cases such as finance (decentralized finance - DeFi), gaming, government/politics, social media platform (e.g. Steemit), Blockchains such as Bitcoin, Etherium, Cardano, are all DApps.

Features of DApps

Because most decentralized apps are built on blockchains, they have features that are very unique. These includes;

• No owners: there’s no central authority that controls the app
• Free from censorship: DApps cannot be censored.
• Built-in payments: you can make payments in DApps seamlessly without any hassles.
• Plug and play functionality
• One anonymous login : you don’t have to provide personal details about yourself before you can access it.
• Backed by cryptography.
• No downtime: always running 24/7
• Runs on a decentralized network (blockchain)
• Utilises a different backend protocol than Web apps.
  Characteristics of DApps
• Decentralized: open source, difficul to alter or change anything on the protocol
• Deterministic: it executes instructions regardless of the environment.
• Turing complete: capable of executing any action at any given time.
• Isolated: activities of DApps does not harm normal functioning of the Blockchain.
• Smart contracts: self-executing automated transaction between two persons (buyer and seller) on a peer-to-peer (P2P) manner without the need for an intermediaries.
  Explain the working system of DApps
• DApps works on an entirely open-source system
• Data most be stored on the blockchain in an immutable way
• Generates assets (tokens) as proof-of-value.

Working systems of Etherium DApps

Ethereum was the first blockchain for dApps. One of the success reasons of Ethereum was the technology called Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). A Turing machine is a machine capable of simulating and running any computer algorithm. A piece of code for EVM is called a smart contract. Any smart contract or dApp code can be programmed for EVM and executed by the decentralised ethereum computer network.

Etherium blockchain utilises the Etherium Virtual Machine (EVM) to run DApps smoothly and successfully. The EVM is a computation engine which behaves like a decentralized computer capable of processing and executing millions of transactions or projects.

EVM is one of the biggest projects in the world of cryptocurrencies. It is the bedrock upon which DApps e.g. Etherium is built and functions. EVM is the Runtime environment for every Smart Contracts.

The most popular categories of dApps on Ethereum are:
• games (My Crypto Heroes, Ethermon, Lordless)
• decentralised exchanges (IDEX, Forkdelta, Kyber)
• marketplaces (Decentraland Marketplace, OpenSea)
• Gambling (FCK, Win777 and Etheroll)

What are the difference between DApps and other Applications?

There are striking differences between web applications and DApps. Below are some of the differences in a tabular way.

Web apps	DApps
(1) Uses HTTP to communicate with the server	Uses P2P wallets which serve as a bridge between DApp and the blockchain network
(2) Stores data on a separate server	Data is stored on the blockchain
(3) Data is created by the central authority	Data is created by the users in a decentralized manner.
(4) Most web apps are free	It costs money to use
(5) Have built-in ads that are monitored by the central authority	No built-in ads
(6) Examples are Chrome, Firefox, PayPal	Examples are Uniswap, PopcornTime, Steemit.

Explain the Advantages and Disadvantages of DApps

Advantages

• Transactions are seamless with no middlemen conundrum and extortions.
• Invulnerable to attacks
• They are applicable in all industries (real life use cases) such as gaming, medical, research, decentralized finance (DeFi), governance, etc.
• Everyone can have access to the information on DApps (transparency)
• Privacy and anonymity
• Some DApps support lending/borrowing of funds just like traditional financial institutions.
• No permission is needed for building DApps platforms unlike traditional Web applications where you have to obtain permission from relevant authorities.
Transactions are processed at high speed. Capable of handling thousands of transactions per seconds (TPS).

Disadvantages

• Lack of central authority result in slower updates and platform changes or upgrades.
• Lack of central authority also makes it difficult to resolve transaction errors.
• Less accessible to vast majority of people most especially at its early stage of development.
• Most DApps are not user friendly.
• Harder to develop and maintain
• High energy (electricity) demands
• Frequent threats of “banning” from governments.
• Not many people are familiar DApps technology

How can DApps developers promote their apps?

DApps developers can promote their apps in one or all of the following ways:-

• By listing their apps on DApps reviewing websites e.g. dappsrdar.com, dappreview.com, etc.
• By using powerful influencers to market their apps. For instance, @stephenkendal is one of the powerful influencers that popularised Steemit, although he’s not being paid for his generous services but his influence is powerful in convincing people to join steemit.
• Create a decentralized social media marketing plan e.g. #promot-steem which is sponsored by @stephenkendal.
• Social media campaigns on Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, WeChat, TikTok, etc.
• Collaborate with bigger projects.
• Submit to DApps directories e.g. dappradar.com, dapp100.org, dappclap.com, dappbang.com, dapp.review, dapptrack.com, etc.
• By joining forums such as bitcointalk.org, forum.etherium.org, cryptocurrencytalk.com, chaincodedevs.com, etc.

How can we find the information of a DApp that we want to know?

There are several ways to get information on a DApp that we want to know about. You can just Google the name of the DApp and countless search results will appear on your Google page which gives you different kinds of information about the DApp you searched.

Another way to find information on a DApp that we want to know is by visiting the website dappradar.com. This website gives reliable information about all the DApps on the blockchain network.

Below are steps you should take to find information about a DApp on https://dappradar.com/

Step 1: visit the website https://dappradar.com.

Click On the menu as shown in the screenshot below

Click on "Ranking"

DApps are displayed according to their categories.
There are 9 categories of dApps as follows:-

Games:

• Splinterlands
• Alien Worlds
• Arc8
• MOBOX: NFT Farmer

DeFi:

• PancakeSwap
• ApeSwap
• Uniswap V3
• AutoShark Finance (BSC)

Gambling:

• Serious Dice
• TTGuess
• TT-KENO
• TT-PLINKO

Exchanges:

• Uniswap
• QuickSwap
• Trader Joe
• JustSwap

Other:

• TT Mining
• AtomicAssets
• Taco
• NEAR Crowd
• SimpleAssets

Social:

• Yup
• Steemit
• PeakD
• Hive Blog
• Ecency

Collectibles:

• NBA TopShot
• Polychain Monsters
• Tpunks
• Bored Ape Yacht Club Tron

Marketplaces:

• OpenSea
• AtomicMarket
• Hic et Nunc
• NeftyBlocks
• SCV.finance

High Risk:

• BNB Miner
• SmartInu
• Polygonex
• Crypto Egg
• TRONGLADIATOR

Step 2: To check the latest ranking of all dApps,click on"Ranking"

Step 3: A page that shows the latest ranking of all dApps will appear. The various DApps are ranked by their balance,users,volume and activity.

Step 4: I want to check details about Steemit DApp which is listed under the "Social" category and ranked as there as #2.

To check the details of Steemit, you click on it's icon.

Step 5: after I clicked on Steemit icon, information about Steemit was displayed as seen in the screenshot below

From the screenshot above, we can deduce the following information about Steemit:

• Ranked as #38 among DApps
• Ranked as #2 among Social media DApps
• Ranked as #1 DApp on Steem blockchain.
• Has 4.23k users in the past 24H
• Processed 19.8k transactions in the last 24H
• Balance of $3.1M
• Link to Steemit DApp 👉 https://steemit.com

Conclusion
Decentralized Applications (DApps) is the future of apps. There's more to be done by DApps developers to make it fit real life use cases.

I have learned that even Steemit is a DApp; something i never knew previously.

Thanks once again prof @wahyunahrul for a wonderful lecture.
Can't wait to write your next homework!

Special thanks to my professors
@awesononso
@reminiscence01
@dilchamo