Internet Computer is an open source cloud computing platform built by the DFINITY Foundation to address some of the major challenges faced by today’s traditional internet such as poor system security, internet service monopoly, and data abuse. user’s personalization.

Internet Computer was founded to give the current internet the ability to host applications of all sizes, from simple smart contracts and DeFi applications to platforms for industry-wide and enterprise systems. The system is theoretically capable of storing “all of humanity’s data and software logic in smart contracts”.

The project was founded and first announced in 2015. Throughout 2018, the project made several rounds of funding and raised a total of $195 million. The DFINITY Foundation is the organization that is currently overseeing the growth and development of the Internet Computer. In addition to its headquarters in Zurich, the DFINITY Foundation also has offices in Palo Alto, San Francisco, Tokyo as well as remote teams around the globe.

In addition, the vast developer community is now the other force that is setting the platform. They use DFINITY’s developer resources to build and launch their own software on Internet Computer.

How does Internet Computer work?

Internet Computer is built on the new decentralized Internet Computer Protocol (ICP). The project’s direction is to combine the combined computing power of a large number of computing nodes to create a single unified computing platform capable of supporting applications of all sizes and complexity.

With the Internet Computer, smart contracts are segregated into multiple units of secure code, called “canisters” (boxes). Canister is a unit of computation that acts as an individual application or function. End users can interact with them through an entry point and the user experience will be like the internet of today.

On the other hand, unlike the traditional internet, Internet Computer will directly store and serve applications and data on-chain, instead of relying on centralized infrastructure. At its base layer, a network of data centers can launch a node that operates the ICP protocol. These nodes are then mapped into multiple subnets that are used to host software canisters that users can interact with as part of the web experience.

As of March 2021, the platform has launched a semi-public mainnet and data centers. Developers also started working on it. Just a few days after its launch, the ICP token was quickly listed on the world’s leading exchanges such as Coinbase, Binance, Huobi, etc. In addition, a number of ICP futures products (known as IOUs) are also traded on various platforms, including MXC.

Recently, the DFINITY Foundation revealed the project’s 20-year roadmap.

– Within 5 years: Schools will teach Internet Computer and Motoko (the programming language of the platform). Some public internet services will achieve considerable success and widespread understanding of ICP.

– Within 10 years: Internet Computer will surpass the closed proprietary internet ecosystem of technology giants. Money will continue to be redirected to ICP from many legacy internet companies, and DeFi will be on par with traditional financial technology.

– Within 20 years: The project will become big compared to today’s closed internet. Most of society’s critical infrastructure will be hosted on it, and users worldwide benefit from significantly improved privacy and personal freedom.

What makes Internet Computer unique?

Unlike other competing platforms, end users do not have to pay for the results of smart contract (or canister) computations on the Internet Computer. These canisters are pre-charged by “cycle” and paid through the “reverse gas” model.

This offers a number of benefits. Firstly, users do not need to own any cryptocurrency to interact with the platform – removing a significant barrier to entry. Users don’t even need to know that the service they’re interacting with is based on decentralized technologies, making the process a seamless experience to what they’re used to today.

Instead, data centers receive remuneration for their services in the form of ICP tokens. Some of these tokens are used to pay the canister by cycle. Like the computing resources of the Internet Computer, cycles gradually deplete with each canister usage and must be replenished regularly.

The cost of each cycle will be set by the network’s governance system and must aim for a stable value over time.

This governance system is called Network Nervous System (NNS) first launched by DFINITY Foundation in September 2020. The NNS is responsible for “controlling, configuring and managing” the network. To participate in network governance, users need to lock ICP tokens for a certain period of time. This process creates a “Neuron” that allows them to vote on governance proposals to help shape the network and earn governance rewards.

Internet Computer works with a PoS-based 4-layer consensus mechanism, including the identity layer, the random signaling layer, the blockchain layer, and the authentication layer. Together, these layers enable provable security and resist known attack vectors (such as Sybil impersonation and 51% attacks) while maintaining network decentralization and security. can scale to support millions of participants.

The Internet Computer project has one of the most specialized teams in the crypto space. As DFINITY once praised, the project is being built by “the best team of distributed computing engineers, cryptographers and operations experts in the industry”.

The development of the Internet Computer was led by DFINITY founder Dominic Williams. He is an experienced scientist and entrepreneur who pioneered DFINITY’s threshold-forward consensus model and PSC chain technology.

Compare Internet Computer with Ethereum

Unlike Ethereum which provides a technological foundation for decentralized applications (DApps) which are mainly concerned with the movement and use of digital assets (such as ETH and ERC-20 tokens), the Internet Computer is responsible for The service replaces the traditional internet by allocating a special identity to the data center and using the transfer of ICP administration rights to the end user.

Ethereum leverages smart contracts to automatically enforce agreements and actions. Meanwhile, Internet Computer uses a canister similar to a smart contract, but built for extreme scalability.

In addition, the two platforms differ significantly in speed and efficiency. While Ethereum currently suffers from relatively high transaction fees and slow transaction confirmation times (mostly due to congestion), the Internet Computer’s massive traffic ensures it can fully process transactions in 5 minutes. -10 seconds, with practically unlimited scalability thanks to transition threshold innovation.

With such performance advantages, it is clear that Internet Computer is superior to the current state of Ethereum. However, as Ethereum 2.0 completes its rollout, these differences can change dramatically over time.

Minh Anh

According to Coinmarketcap

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