The Blockchain Revolution at the Palm of Your Hand

Industries are slowly realizing the importance of blockchain and how it will change transactions in their domain. Earlier it seemed that blockchain is mainly associated with cryptocurrencies, and cryptocurrency was not in the mainstream of industries. But scenario is slowly changing. There has been a paradigm shift in software models since the entry of blockchain. Blockchain itself is evolving continuously and bringing forth new trends and techniques. Blockchain apps or DApps are the latest entrants causing a buzz.

What are DApps?

DApps are decentralized applications that have come into picture since the advent of P2P networks.  Today, there are a large number of popular applications running in the world of decentralized applications. DApps is an acronym for Dated, Achievable, Personal, Positive and Specific. These are applications designed to run on the peer-to-peer network, also known as the blockchain. The point of DApps is to remove transaction intermediaries and make blockchain more beneficial and efficient for users. As these applications run on a network of computers rather than a single computer, they are decentralized. These apps are transparent, flexible, distributed, resilient and transparent.

To qualify as a DApp, an application needs to have certain characteristics, it includes -      

• It should be open source. Thus, the source of code should be available to all.
• It should be decentralized and use blockchain-like technology for cryptography.
• The app should have digital assets or tokens for itself that can act as incentive.
• It should run on an algorithm or protocol that has an inbuilt consensus mechanism and generates tokens.

Bitcoin was the first decentralized application designed in the market. Ethereum is among the first platforms that showed people how blockchain protocol can be used for development. In case of Ethereum, it allows developers to create smart contract by defining their own “ownership rules”. Transaction functions and formats are being created for multiple segments like governance, education, legal, community and more. Ethereum also paved the way for other smart contract platforms like Tron and EOS. Still, Ethereum is considered to be the most reliable due to its advantages over other platforms. Across these 3 platforms, there are over 100,000 users daily.

Advantages of Ethereum include -

• Better stability
• Reduced downtime·        
• Better security and privacy
• High reliability
• Does not require 3rd party integration for payment gateway

Most popular apps can be distributed into the following categories like Exchanges, Gambling,

Top 5 DApps of 2019 include -

• PRA CandyBox
• The SAFE Network
• Factom
• Augur
• ENBank
• TGON
• EOS Knights

This is just the start of DApps and their potential. The decentralized world is amazing and it brings new innovation each day.  Current generation of the apps has only given a sneak peek into what is possible. What other benefits DApps can provide is still under discussion. The mainstream users of centralized applications are yet to be touched by this revolution. Scalability still remains an issue with decentralized apps, especially the ones that use Ethereum. User friendliness is another challenge that needs to be analyzed. To enhance the acceptance of these apps, the transaction fees and storage costs can be reduced for DApps developers and users. Time will tell who turns out to be the leader in the world of decentralized apps.