Steemit Crypto Academy Season 5 Beginners' course - Task 8: Decentralized Applications (dApps)

1). 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?


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Decentralized Applications (DApps) are a new chapter in the evolution of information technology. The idea of decentralized applications was first proposed in September 2013 by Daniel Larimer in an article on “Decentralized Autonomous Enterprises, or DACs. Larimer describes the activities of companies that have a horizontal structure, i.e. the company does not have a sole owner or board of directors, each member of the company is a full co-owner and has full access to information.

The idea stuck, the development of which was suggested by the famous Vitalik Buterin, who described the principle of the platform for creating decentralized "smart contracts". Buterin outlined the theoretical underpinnings in 2014, and a year later a new blockchain appeared - Ethereum.

DApps is a blockchain based application. Its main features are that it is open source and attack resistant.

What are the main characteristics of blockchain? It is the sequential storage of information forming blocks created using cryptographic verification. An important feature of blockchain is consensus, that is, mutual confirmation of authenticity, the system does not have a single control center, it is impossible to lose or invalidate new records in it, and all old records are kept unchanged and available to each participant of the network.

There is one more significant feature. In a distributed network, autonomous computers interact with each other to solve some common problem, and in decentralization, each device is completely autonomous, does not assign tasks to other nodes and does not accept such tasks from them. To confirm consensus, the application can communicate with any node on the network, and not with any specific node, which makes the network stable and secure. The closest example of such a network is torrenting, which is built like a peer-to-peer p2p network.

Explain the working system of dApps?

DApps operate by applying the four criteria, namely:

1. Open source the source code of the application is available to everyone.

2. Decentralized - Using cryptographic technology similar to blockchain.

3. Incentives - This app has crypto tokens/digital assets to fill.

4. Algorithm/Protocol - Generates tokens and has a built-in consensus mechanism.

This means that a DApp is an open source software platform implemented on a decentralized blockchain and populated using tokens generated using a protocol/algorithm.

The open source application makes it truly decentralized because everyone can view and contribute to the code. It also speeds up the scaling process for product development in terms of both quality and quantity.

Decentralizing applications using blockchain is the next step. Blockchain serves as a permanent list of records/transactions that anyone can access at any time.

Currently, the popular protocols are PoW (used by Bitcoin users) or PoS (used by Cosmos). They are used to reach a consensus or agreement between all users of a particular DApp.

• Proof-of-Work (POW) requires miners to mine blocks and receive rewards. Since mining blocks and adding them to the blockchain is an energy intensive process, it also ensures the security of the blockchain.

• Proof-of-Stake (POS) requires storage and placement of tokens. It also protects the blockchain and helps in transaction processing.

What are the differences between dApps and other applications?

Decentralized applications and other applications have the difference is that back-end and front-end regular applications are hosted on the same server. Instead, the back end of a decentralized application is hosted on a distributed network of synchronized servers (computer nodes) spread across the globe.

While the popularity of decentralized apps only skyrocketed after the Ethereum network went live, it's important to understand that decentralized apps don't have to run on top of the blockchain.

In fact, the first decentralized application for peer-to-peer file sharing on the Internet was called Napster. This innovative software was founded in 1999, which is ten years before the first blockchain was invented. There are other examples of decentralized applications running on peer-to-peer networks (Peer-to-Peer Networks, P2P), but not on blockchains. It is a popular BitTorrent file sharing service and a privacy-focused open source Tor browser.

Explain the advantages and disadvantages of dApps?

Decentralized applications have advantages and disadvantages, you should not confuse the starting and ending points of innovation. This technology is still in its infancy; Ethereum only emerged six years ago, and decentralized applications have only become widespread in the last two years. Many of the weaknesses of today's decentralized applications can be considered indirect rather than built-in, which means that many of the problems today may not necessarily arise in the future.

Advantages

• Zero downtime

When one node (node) leaves the network or several components fail, all remaining blocks are still working and can do additional work. Once the smart contract underlying the application is deployed on the blockchain, the application will continue to run uninterrupted as long as the network is alive. In addition, due to their decentralized nature, decentralized applications are resistant to a variety of security threats, including:

1. DDoS attack,
2. SQL injection,
3. XML bomb and
4. Cross site leaks (XSS)

which does not apply to conventional applications.

• Resistant to sensors

Again, because they run on an open network without permission, no entity has the authority or authority to block users from accessing or deploying decentralized applications.

• Confidentiality

Usually, users are free to interact with decentralized applications. And using only your cryptocurrency wallet, without providing or disclosing any personally identifiable information.

• Transparency

Since decentralized applications run on a public and transparent blockchain, all data, including the dapp source code and all incoming and outgoing transactions, is also transparent and public. This adds an extra layer of security, as all behavior in the chain is perfectly verifiable, and the decentralized application code can be viewed and verified by anyone at any time.

Disadvantages

• Complexity

Creation the immutability of smart contracts makes it very difficult to build and design decentralized applications. Developers need to plan carefully from the start and ensure that future applications are aligned with decentralized applications. This is necessary because once the basic smart contract is implemented, no changes can be made to the contract. In addition, decentralized applications are built using Ethereum's own programming language called Solidity. Developers do not learn this language unless they are only interested in building decentralized applications on the platform.

• Bad user experience

In general, decentralized applications provide a lower level of user experience than other centralized applications. First, because the technology is in the early stages of development, navigating it is significantly more difficult, even for tech-savvy people. Even worse, all blockchain transactions are immutable and final, leaving no room for error. If a user makes a wrong transaction on a decentralized application, there is little or no fix and the error can be detrimental to the user.

• Expensive to use

performing transactions in decentralized applications requires payment of network transaction fees. These transaction fees, calculated in gas (Ethereum's own unit price) and paid for in ETH, are channeled directly to the miners who maintain the blockchain network on which the dapp runs. In times of high congestion, a simple peer-to-peer transaction can cost anywhere from $2 to $5, while a peer-to-peer transaction such as exchanging tokens on a decentralized exchange can cost more than $20.

• Slowly

Apart from being expensive, decentralized applications are also much slower than regular applications. This is due to the fact that blockchains that use Proof-of-work consensus algorithms take time to complete transactions and mine new blocks. 13.3 seconds is the average block time on the Ethereum blockchain. The network throughput is about 15 transactions per second, which is much lower than that of a centralized application. When usage exceeds the design capacity of the network, the blockchain becomes congested, transactions become more expensive and take longer to complete. In this case, if users do not pay exorbitant gas prices, their transactions may take several hours to complete, or may even be rejected by the network.

• Bug and hack tendencies

The risk of executing smart contracts is definitely at the top of the list. While the deterministic and autonomous code execution and immutability of blockchains do have security benefits, they can cause serious harm if not executed properly. Even the smallest coding error can lead to serious failures in smart contracts. The most subtle design mistakes can lead to disruptive actions, such as losing funds locked into contracts or overburdening them to the point of being unusable. While code audits by reputable audit firms certainly provide comfort to the average DeFi user, some degree of uncertainty remains.

How can dApps developers promote their apps?

There are several very effective ways to promote Dapps, that is :

• Promote it on social media. Social media has become a very influential part in everyone's life. Now everyone is on social networks. This will help others to know about newly developed apps. So social media is best for developers to promote apps.

• Developers can promote decentralized applications in a peer-to-peer manner.

• Airdrops are also an effective way to promote decentralized applications. Airdrops grab users' attention and bring them to the app.

• There are many sites where you can promote your app. People can easily get information about decentralized applications.

What should we pay attention to when using dApps?

There is no doubt that the cryptocurrency world is very profitable. You can earn big rewards by investing in cryptocurrencies. However, there are a few things to be aware of when entering the cryptocurrency market. You should first research the cryptocurrency you want to invest properly. This research tells you about market trends, future markets, and other market characteristics to help you make informed trading decisions. You can lose all your money without proper research.

Analyzing cryptocurrencies before investing is very important. Various tools are available to help traders analyze the market. Analysis allows traders to see market trends, rising and falling prices, and the future of the market. Distributed applications claim to be transparent, but otherwise they should be avoided.

If there is a decentralized application that makes money and you invite someone to join the application with your referrals, such a system is very risky.

Some Dapps that are very risky to be in the exchange market such Dapps are also very dangerous and we should avoid them.

How do we find the information of a DApp that we want to know? Provide the steps (Screenshot required).

First you visit the site dappradar

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After it looks like the picture above, then click the dice icon and select the rankings menu to see a list of all decentralized applications.

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Here will show all apps, you can find all apps and you can choose which app you like.

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I chose to explore PancakeSwap here, I clicked on PancakeSwap as shown above. The PancakeSwap page will appear as shown below.

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