Lưu trữ cho từ khóa: Dapps

DeFi needs more interoperability, not apps or infra | Opinion

DeFi has too much infrastructure and not enough apps—or at least, that’s what the consensus seems to be in crypto’s town square. Just this year, venture capitalists and private equity investors have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into crypto projects that make infrastructure a priority, if not an exclusive focus.

The highlight reel speaks for itself. In the first quarter alone, VC firm a16z committed $100 million to Eigen Layer, a restaking protocol and infrastructure layer for the Ethereum network; private equity firms Bridgewater Capital and Deus X Capital joined forces to fund a $250 million infrastructure platform; and RW3 Ventures raised $60 million for a fund focused exclusively on blockchain infrastructure and DeFi. These headlines are just a few of many; a quick perusal of any crypto news outlet reveals countless similar announcements.

Focus on infrastructure

The laser focus on infrastructure sparked considerable conversation during and following the Ethereum Community Conferences, or EthCC’24, in mid-July, with many coming to the same conclusion: We need more apps and less emphasis on infrastructure.

It’s a valid perspective on the surface. To put the issue into metaphor, focusing disproportionately on infrastructure is like building the best theme park ever seen—without the rides. Who cares if the park has nice paths, sleek gift shops, and well-equipped food stalls? If you don’t have a roller coaster (or five) on the premises, no one will show up, let alone pay to play.

Theoretical value and potential can only inspire so much customer adoption. A wide variety and deep volume of apps could help hook and retain DeFi users. With more options on offer, users will have more reason and opportunity to not only onboard but also explore.

The problem? Increasing the number of apps can only help the underlying issue (e.g., the long-term growth and sustainability of the DeFi ecosystem) so much. Returning to our metaphor, a good theme park needs a variety of rides to attract guests; however, if those rides are inconvenient to access or unpleasant to experience, interest will taper off sharply. 

The real problem: UX

Here, we come to the real problem at the heart of the apps vs. infra debate: user experience.  

To say that the DeFi ecosystem (and the emerging BTCFi sector in particular) isn’t intuitive for layperson users would be an almost comical understatement. Even seemingly simple acts such as moving assets between dapps in different ecosystems can become a time-sucking, frustrating exercise for ordinary users. Despite being fundamental to cross-chain transactions, bridging and swapping are virtually impossible for crypto newcomers to figure out without professional guidance. It’s hard to blame a layperson for giving up midway—or opting not to try in the first place.  

Infrastructure is meant to enable dApps to seamlessly onboard users, yet the BTCfi ecosystem still grapples with fragmentation issues between various Bitcoin (BTC) variants. While crypto has made progress on interoperability, the user experience remains complex. Traditional bridges and platforms still pose significant limitations and frustrations regarding scalability, slippage, MEV problems, TVL honeypots, and slow and expensive transactions.

The “we need apps, not infra” debate fundamentally misses the point of dApp and infra development by seeking to prioritize one over the other. The number of infra projects doesn’t matter; their quality and impact do.

To be fair, few set out to create a low-impact infra project. DeFi is characterized by its pioneering culture; many dApps are the first of their kind and require their innovators to build appropriate infrastructure rails from scratch.

But, as it is in any race, not everyone can be a winner, and unfortunately, many infra projects today are not and may never be impactful. The days of developing projects for DeFi devotees willing to dedicate time to learning how to use a dapp are fast fading into history. DeFi is approaching its mainstream era—and the amateur users we seek to attract won’t tolerate poor UX or care about underlying infra. To reframe into a common experience: if you’re booking an Uber ride, you don’t care whether the Uber platform runs on AWS or Google Cloud; you just want to get from A to B.

Users first

With this in mind, our end goal should be to have robust infra and abstract it away from a user so they can make full use of their dApps without thinking too hard about how it works. Navigating the DeFi ecosystem—and every app within it—should feel seamless to the point of being intuitive for users. At a minimum, we must simplify interoperability by enabling fast, zero-slippage, MEV-resistant, secure swaps with consistently excellent UX. Next, infra-abstraction must be prioritized; users should never need to see the cogs in the metaphorical machine.

This is possible, and intent-based architecture provides a model for user-centric development in DeFi. Unlike conventional blockchain architecture, which requires users to follow a series of often complex steps to achieve a goal, intent-based architecture seeks to put users first. With this approach, users can state their objective (e.g., make a purchase in a BTCFi app using funds stored on Ethereum) and rely on the blockchain protocol to autonomously complete the technical steps required to achieve that directive. Intent-based models could, if applied widely, go a long way towards ensuring infra-abstraction while improving user experiences and simplifying architecture.

Of course, intent-based architecture isn’t a silver bullet. Projects and protocols must collaborate closely to develop integrations that guarantee seamless interoperability and abstract away operational complexities that users may find overwhelming. Innovators will need to build with amateur users in mind rather than crypto natives with technical knowledge.

It’s time to set aside the infra vs. apps debate and focus on what matters most: the users. Most users probably don’t pay attention to architecture design or care about the investment divide between app and infrastructure projects as long as they follow high-security standards and get the job done. They want blockchain-based finance to be accessible and easy to understand; consumers need to be able to use apps, process transactions, and find new ways to use and make money with DeFi. As innovators and advocates for DeFi’s potential, it falls to us to (re)create the ecosystem into a welcoming world that even amateur users can explore without feeling confused, overwhelmed, or demoralized.

Let’s stop counting infra projects and start making them count instead.

Tổng hợp và chỉnh sửa: ThS Phạm Mạnh Cường
Theo Crypto News

Pi coin launch date is hard to predict: here’s why

Hopes for a Pi coin launch in 2024 are fading amid concerns about the KYC verification process, falling cryptocurrency prices, and the lack of an ecosystem.

Pi Network (PI) IoU token has dropped by over 75% from its highest point this year and is hovering near its lowest level since July. This IoU is not affiliated with the official project and trades with low volumes at just a handful of exchanges.

This price action is primarily driven by concerns among analysts and pioneers about whether the mainnet launch will happen later this year, as developers promised in 2023.

The developers have set three essential conditions that must be met for Pi to transition from its enclosed mainnet to an open network.

The first, and simplest, condition is that most pioneers must be verified to prevent spam. So far, the developers have verified over 13 million users, most of whom have moved to the mainnet.

As part of this verification, the developers introduced the grace period algorithm to refine pauses based on system blocks.

The grace period, which started in July, ensures that pioneers must submit their initial KYC documents within the first three months and complete the process within six months. Pioneers who fail to complete the KYC process will likely lose their accumulated tokens.

Pi Network ecosystem growth challenges

The other two conditions for the Pi coin launch are harder to achieve. For example, developers aim for a thriving ecosystem of decentralized applications, which would give the Pi coin more utility. The mainnet launch will occur when these dApps reach 100.

It is unclear whether there are enough dApps in Pi Network’s ecosystem. Some of the most notable ones include the Pi Browser and the Fireside Forum. The developers also launched the Pi Ad Network, which will be used to run ads within Pi Network’s dApps.

The Pi coin launch will also depend on favorable market conditions or a cryptocurrency bull market.

The uncertainty surrounding the launch date explains why the Pi coin IOU price has dropped by over 75% from its highest point this year. While this IOU is not officially associated with the Pi Network project, its price would likely be performing better if there were clarity on the mainnet launch.

A fundamental concern about Pi Network is the real value of the mined Pi coins, which are currently worthless since they cannot be exchanged for fiat currencies. In the past, many similar coins have disappointed investors after their mainnet launch.

Most recently, DOGS (DOGS), a popular token on Telegram, tumbled by over 41% from its highest level last week. Similarly, the Sweat Economy token has dropped by 95% from its 2022 high. Before its mainnet launch, the Sweatcoin app had over 50 million downloads globally.

Tổng hợp và chỉnh sửa: ThS Phạm Mạnh Cường
Theo Crypto News

Stacks, the OG Bitcoin L2, shows the power of being early | Opinion

It’s been an “exceptionally eventful month” for Bitcoin (BTC). BTC whale transactions reached a four-month high while the market “purged” short-term holders. The unrealized losses for speculators touched crypto assets worth millions of US dollars. Such wipeouts reiterate the pressing need to foster long-term adoption. 

Meanwhile, investors are ‘buying the dip,’ and spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded some of the highest single-day inflows. 

Bitcoin ETF flow | Source: Farside Investors

So, the short-term bleeding and apparent mayhem coexist with overall bullishness and demand. And as David Canellis of Blockworks recently wrote

…We may be finally ready to put the worst dramas in crypto history to bed, for good.

Rising above the typical numbers-go-higher (or lower) view, Bitcoin is experiencing a renaissance, mainly from the asset perspective: It’s outgrowing the ‘digital gold’ image and expanding on the utility front. 

BTC is finally a ‘productive asset’ thanks to the evolution of Bitcoin defi, or BTCfi. Plus, Layer-2s like Stacks bring programmability to the world’s most decentralized and secure blockchain. Bitcoin is becoming the home for new-age dApps—Stacks is dominating this $1 trillion opportunity. And there’s a lesson in being early and consistent here. 

Slowly at first, then all at once 

Bitcoin and the economics it supports are based on the principle of low-time preference. It’s a feature, not a bug. Rome was not built in a day. But it is easy to lose sight of this reality amidst all the noise in crypto.

BTCfi started getting the hype and attention it deserves after Ordinals and BRC20 launched in 2023. They were indeed the first practical evidence that Bitcoin can be much more than a store of value. Yet the primitives for a fully functional BTCfi have been in production for much longer. Stacks launched in 2013, for instance, and created Clarity in 2021, the programming language for Bitcoin-compatible smart contracts. 

More importantly, they developed the proof of transfer (PoX) consensus mechanism, enabling L2 chains to inherit Bitcoin’s security without additional energy expenditure. 

These early innovations laid the foundation for the now-booming Bitcoin L2 ecosystem, which currently has over $2 billion in TVL. Nevertheless, the need to scale Bitcoin on the second layer became truly apparent only when Runes sent the network’s fees through the roof after the halving. 

That’s the nature of lasting technological change. They emerge slowly at first, then all at once. And when that happens, visionaries who thanklessly build real solutions—before others even start caring—hit the home run. 

Is it working or not? — That’s the question

Despite its merits, being early is not the endgame. The crypto community has seen enough lip service over the years. They want actual results now. It ultimately boils down to the question of impact, and that’s great. 

Most existing Bitcoin L2s fail to solve the Impossible Trinity. They are either loosely linked to the Bitcoin L1 at best or highly centralized at worst. Only a few projects like Stacks have made the right trade-offs, even if that meant angering a few maxis. Commitment to the core Bitcoin ethos separates L2s that are hosting dApps and those relying solely on marketing gimmicks or speculative price action.

Stacks took a giant leap forward in this direction with its performance-enhancing Nakamoto Release with a trustless two-way BTC pegging mechanism, a.k.a. sBTC. The impact of this move is reflected in Stacks’ growing number of monthly active accounts, which reached an all-time high of over 1.2 million in Q2 2024.

Cumulative unique wallets | Source: Signal21 Analytics

Moreover, Stacks currently has a TVL of over $68 million, as most of the top Bitcoin dApps are building on this platform. Slowly yet steadily, they are helping improve Bitcoin’s TVL-to-market-cap ratio, which was a mere 0.2% in May 2024, vs. Ethereum’s 17%. 

Alongside the evolution of Bitcoin dApps, top VCs and investors are backing the production of AI-powered interoperability and bridging solutions. These tools will further improve Bitcoin’s liquidity situation. AI Agents, for example, will allow users to seamlessly move funds to the Bitcoin ecosystem even without complex technical understanding or know-how. This means they can better integrate Bitcoin dApps into their workflows while simultaneously benefitting from other chains. 

It won’t be a zero-sum game anymore, which is great for holistic growth. Given such developments, the next ‘defi Summer’ on Bitcoin is a tangible, almost imminent reality. It’s no longer an optimist’s fantasy. 

BTCfi has found its inflection drivers, and it can soon become at least as big as defi on Ethereum. Ideally, though, it can be way bigger thanks to Bitcoin’s over 54% market dominance. 

The biggest appeal of BTCfi innovations is that they primarily enhance and expand the underlying native asset. It is not a zero-sum game where projects extract the maximum value at the cost of end-users and devs. 

Rather, it’s a collective effort to ensure grassroots empowerment and financial freedom. Bitcoin-based dApps are the means to a greater end. They represent a philosophy where tech becomes the engine for individual sovereignty and freedom, not just an enabler of selfish, short-term gains. It’s a question of bringing meaningful change to the lives of the next one billion crypto users and beyond. That will lead to a better world, financially and otherwise. 

Tổng hợp và chỉnh sửa: ThS Phạm Mạnh Cường
Theo Crypto News

Blockchain industry must break vendor lock-in for developers’ freedom | Opinion

No single entity, interest group, or political faction defines (or dominates) the blockchain industry. But despite all differences, positive and negative, there is a shared mission—achieving mass adoption. 

More people, businesses, and communities must benefit from crypto and blockchain tech worldwide. To achieve this fully, anyone should be able to build high-quality dApps and on-chain tools. Devs must have the freedom to express themselves in any language and on any chain. They should be able to build once and deploy anywhere. 

While the recent institutional uptake and political attention might seem exciting, they are mostly driven by vested interests. What’s ‘crypto-friendly now’ does not mean crypto-friendly five years from now, as Vitalik Buterin pointed out. Good dApps, however, are actual manifestations of blockchain’s principles and potential. Once deployed, they can continue serving the community on pre-defined terms enforced by censorship-resistant blockchains—ideally, even when the original creator is not there, as with Bitcoin (BTC). 

Thus, the endgame is empowering developers (and users). No single interest or agenda, political or technological, shall determine the path forward. In its purest form, crypto is an expression of freedom—freedom from intermediaries and censorship, freedom to express through code.

DApps make blockchain real—and valuable

Blockchain tech must solve real, day-to-day problems to transition from speculative adoption to long-term mass/retail adoption. However, the recent spike in financial nihilism and meme coin adoption shows that people care more about speculation than foundational principles. 

Yet speculation without actual underlying value is unsustainable. Only those apps and platforms that generate value through fees, transaction volumes, etc., will still be around in ten years or more. As of August 7, 2024, Uniswap, for example, collected about $13 million in weekly fees—that’s hundreds of millions in annual revenue. With the 10x price-to-earnings heuristic often applied to high-growth tech companies, it seems Uniswap (UNI) $4.5 billion valuation is on par, and the market is pricing it appropriately. 

DApps make crypto or blockchain tech usable for end-users. They bring the power of immutable code—which doesn’t need intermediaries—to the masses. Trading, lending, gaming, rideshares, etc., can all happen without any single entity opaquely and unfairly extracting value. 

Given crypto’s roots in Bitcoin and close proximity to money, finance was the first industry to be disrupted. But the recent rise of decentralized gaming, socials (DeSoc), physical infra (DePIN), AI, etc., on cost-effective and high-throughput chains like Base or Solana shows how the tech has a much wider scope than disrupting financial products/processes. 

That’s why there is a rising demand in the global dApp industry, where daily unique active wallet interactions reached an all-time high in Q2 2024. 

Industry unique active wallets | Source: DappRadar

Landline telephones took 99 years to reach peak adoption. Automobiles took 78. Computers, however, crossed 89% adoption in 24 years. Whereas social media and tablets achieved a similar feat in 14 and 7 years, respectively. 

This shows how newer technologies have achieved majority adoption in significantly less time than their predecessors. But key ‘enablers’ must be present for this, which dApps can be for blockchain tech. 

From user-friendly graphical interfaces to making backend components frictionless/invisible to end-users, dApps are inevitable. And those who say blockchain needs more dApps and less infra are quite right from this view. 

Anywhere, anytime, all at once

As crypto continues to grow, a lot of talented devs have entered the space, including some of the brightest minds from Google, Meta, IBM, etc., like the founding team at Aptos and Sui, among others. Great things have happened as a result. Move rising like a phoenix from Diem’s ashes and SVM from FTX are two prime examples of a new generation of devs picking alternatives to the EVM status quo. Lowering the barriers to dApp development is mission-critical now so more projects can emerge. 

For a long time, the Ethereum Virtual Machine has been the only standard available to blockchain developers. Along with Solidity, the EVM was built to deploy and run custom programs on Ethereum. Likewise, there is  ‘Solana VM’ on Solana, ‘Move VM’ on Aptos or Sui, Web Assembly on Cosmos, etc. Although these are great innovations with many merits, they have caused fragmentation and vendor lock-in. EVM-based dApps can’t run natively on Solana, and SVM-based dApps can’t use Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, or other EVM-powered platforms.

Meanwhile, deploying dApps on multiple chains is very cumbersome and unfeasible due to high costs. For one, devs have to create and maintain multiple code bases. Thus, truly multi-chain and interoperable dApps take a lot of work to come by. Projects like AAVE or Pancakeswap are exceptions, as they have the necessary resources for multi-chain deployment. However, even for them, innovation in non-EVM code lags behind the EVM code due to high costs and time requirements. Moreover, for end-users, vendor lock-in means they need to use multiple wallets and hold assets from various ecosystems because their favorite dApp, wallet, or token doesn’t support the new chain they want to use. 

Devs want freedom from such walled gardens for the sake of blockchain’s long-term progress if not anything else. They must be able to build an application once and offer it to users across ecosystems, asset classes, and VMs—not just one. Users have a similar need.

Abstracting wallets, chains, and even VMs is a viable solution. It will let developers build dApps on any VM in any programming language and run them on every other chain or VM. That, too, with little or no additional costs and security compromises. 

Further, abstracting away the underlying complexities will allow anyone to build robust dApps with a few clicks. That will change everything. Web3 will mirror web2’s performance and speed after the mass market adoption of container technologies like Kubernetes, which helped get rid of public cloud vendor lock-in. To the extent that builders can utilize different chains/platforms for different aspects of their dApps based on specific needs and demands, such as Solana for high-frequency transactions, Ethereum for settlement finality and data availability, and so on. 

Solving vendor lock-in will improve the developer and end-user experience. Everyone can reap the benefits of the underlying tech stack and that’s the path to mass adoption. More dApps can enter the market than ever before. All of them won’t be great. But the more there are, the higher the chances of finding the next gamechanger. 

Tổng hợp và chỉnh sửa: ThS Phạm Mạnh Cường
Theo Crypto News

Mistral AI surges: How $640M could shake up AI, crypto, and big tech alliances

Is the intersection of Mistral AI’s funding a glimpse into the future of decentralized finance and AI-powered technologies?

Mistral AI, a French tech startup, has recently concluded a large funding round, raising €600 million (approximately 0 million). This funding, a blend of equity and debt, has raised Mistral AI’s valuation to billion.

Founded just over a year ago, Mistral AI specializes in developing AI models, similar to those used by industry leaders like OpenAI, valued at over billion.

These AI models, known for their applications in chatbots and other AI-driven services, require large investments in advanced infrastructure, such as Nvidia’s high-performance semiconductors.

Mistral AI has attracted substantial attention and support, as evidenced by previous investments from major entities, such as Microsoft’s million investment in February 2024.

Moreover, Mistral AI has taken steps towards openness and collaboration by releasing several of its AI models under open-source licenses, enabling developers worldwide to leverage and build upon Mistral AI’s technology.

Beyond financial achievements, Mistral AI’s partnerships with cloud providers like Microsoft Azure cement its strategy to integrate AI solutions into diverse technological ecosystems and expand its global footprint in the competitive AI market.

But what does it mean for the crypto market, and why should you take notes? Let’s find out.

How does it impact crypto?

Mistral AI’s recent funding round highlights the increasing demand for advanced AI technologies, which aligns with the infrastructure needs of global crypto mining operations. 

As AI models continue to evolve, necessitating high-performance semiconductors and extensive data processing capabilities, the synergy with crypto mining — also reliant on powerful computing power and secure data management—becomes increasingly apparent. This commonality could lead to opportunities for resource sharing and collaboration between the two industries.

Simultaneously, the integration of AI with blockchain presents promising opportunities for cryptocurrencies. Blockchain’s decentralized structure and transparent ledger system provide solutions to challenges such as data security and transparency in AI applications. 

This alignment not only enhances the reliability of AI systems but also stimulates innovations in the crypto space, potentially improving efficiency and security across decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms.

Juan Leon, a senior crypto research analyst, projects the economic impact of this convergence, suggesting that AI and crypto combined could contribute up to trillion to the global GDP by 2030. 

Practically, Mistral AI’s funding is just a starting point that could accelerate developments in AI infrastructure, potentially increasing demand for computational power and data storage—and aligning more closely with the similar needs of the crypto sector.

Giants watching and making moves

At the recent Cornell Blockchain Conference, Microsoft’s Yorke Rhodes discussed the evolving relationship between AI and blockchain. 

He hinted at the prospect of AI-powered agents leveraging blockchain’s capabilities, signaling the early stages of exploration in this convergence.

Microsoft’s approach involves optimizing existing technologies rather than developing foundational blockchain infrastructure (L1). Rhodes cited their focus on enhancing efficiencies, such as through layer-2 blockchain rollups, which streamline transactions and improve scalability.

Industry voices, including Matt Stephenson from Pantera Capital, also agreed on cryptocurrencies in supporting AI advancements. Stephenson mentioned that crypto could serve as a fundamental infrastructure for AI models, particularly transformative and diffusion models. 

These dynamics intensify with OpenAI’s role, recently embroiled in partnerships with Apple that could redefine industry alliances. 

Recent reports suggest the integration of OpenAI services into Apple products. Microsoft, a key investor in OpenAI, has been watching these developments closely. 

The strategic implications for Microsoft are clear: a successful Apple-OpenAI alliance could potentially disrupt Microsoft’s own AI initiatives, prompting a careful reevaluation of their competitive strategy in AI and cloud computing, and crypto could become a sidekick in this exercise.

The road ahead

As AI and crypto technologies continue to evolve, their combined impact on global economies will likely be far-reaching. From enhancing operational efficiencies to promoting innovation and economic growth, these technologies could reshape how companies and economies function and conduct business.

In addition, there is brewing tech rivalry between giants that might adopt various use cases of blockchain and AI to become more competitive. 

Microsoft is still reeling from the alliance of Apple and OpenAI, which could alter the dynamics at play, while Google watches from a distance, making the interplay even more interesting.

It’s fair to conclude that things are accelerating at full force, and the funding in Mistral AI is one of the starting points of a large showdown that is yet to happen.

Tổng hợp và chỉnh sửa: ThS Phạm Mạnh Cường
Theo Crypto News

Application-specific blockchains are the future of decentralization | Opinion

Blockchain is a cutting-edge technology in today’s digital world. It secures online ledgers for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) across industries. Its global market is projected to soar from .88 billion in 2021 to ,314.03 billion by 2030 at an 82.4% compound annual growth rate (CAGR).

Blockchain technology market size | Source: Straits Research

Enter application-specific blockchains. These platforms excel in performance, scalability, security, cost-efficiency, and governance compared to general-purpose applications, shaping the future of decentralization. As this industry segment expands, these specialized blockchains hold immense promise.

This page explores the impact of application-specific blockchains. Read on to find out why they are the future of decentralization. 

Top reasons why it is the application-specific blockchains

Application-specific blockchains are the type of blockchains designed to operate a single application instead of building an app from an existing blockchain. They are new platforms created from the ground up with distinctive attributes, such as custom virtual machines and consensus processes. In short, they aren’t codes written on a general-purpose blockchain platform.

Evidently, application-specific blockchains are designed for individual decentralized applications (dApps). DApps are software programs running on a blockchain or peer-to-peer network of computers instead of on a single computer. 

There are two types of blockchains you can distinguish: layer-1 (L1 coordinating consensus and execution on the same layer) and layer-2 (L2 separating execution from consensus). Avalanche Subnets, Polygon Supernets, and Cosmos Zones are a few examples of how you can utilize these customized blockchains to advance decentralization.

What’s great is that the blockchain industry has a long history of internal support among industry players and key developers. These internal blockchain investments provide talented developers with key opportunities to create application-specific platforms. They can seek blockchain funding in various practical ways, whether through bootstrapping, venture capital, or crowdfunding.

Application-specific blockchains can be instrumental to more decentralized networks. Here’s why they are the future of decentralization:

1. They allow for platform customization and optimization

As web3 technologies become more widespread, application-specific blockchains enable developers to customize blockchain characteristics for specific use cases. This customization is particularly beneficial for business applications. Companies might have specialized chain needs with particular attributes that these platforms can help optimize.

For example, Re.al has launched blockchain platforms for real-world assets (RWAs). They address long-term challenges in decentralized finance by providing a tailored solution for managing assets like properties and commodities. By developing its own blockchain platform, Re.al improves infrastructure, making assets more accessible for trading while maintaining fluidity and compatibility.

2. They enable you to scale applications up and down

Application-specific blockchains allow flexible scalability for platforms, allowing them to adjust capacity in response to demand. For example, EY’s Ethereum-based blockchain solution, the EY OpsChain Contract Manager (OCM), simplifies complex agreements, reduces costs, and improves security. 

Application-specific blockchains differ from smart contracts, self-executing codes written on general-purpose blockchains. Smart contracts automate and enforce agreements between parties without changing the blockchains’ attributes. However, a smart contract audit process is critical for reviewing codes to detect and correct security flaws or problems. 

According to Grand View Research, the global smart contracts market will grow from 4.3 million in 2022 to ,773.0 million at an 82.2% CAGR. While this market growth could pave the way for future scalability in blockchain technology, the application-specific blockchain can offer more.

Smart contracts market size and trends | Source: Grand View Research

3. They guarantee network security and data privacy on the platform

Application-specific blockchains promote network security and data privacy. Thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain integration, they are capable of securing networks and safeguarding information. While AI provides sophisticated data processing capabilities, blockchain maintains data integrity and transparency via a secure, decentralized ledger.

In logistics and supply chain management, protecting AI information on a blockchain provides data validity and accuracy across the supply chain. This eliminates tampering while also ensuring compliance and traceability. 

The same technology applies to the media and entertainment industries. Decentralized AI networks on blockchain allow producers and consumers to communicate directly for guaranteed privacy and security.

4. They offer low transactional fees without compromising efficiency

Application-specific blockchains provide economic benefits by lowering transaction fees while maintaining efficiency. They also reduce costs by eliminating extraneous features and focusing resources on critical functions.

In web3, validators on platforms like ETC receive a significant percentage of the transaction fees and revenue generated by interactions with defi apps. However, defi apps on native chains can keep 100% of protocol costs, allowing them to extract greater value from their activities.

Further, application-specific blockchains allow applications to match token pricing to the underlying blockchain’s token value. For example, if an app chain asks users to pay transaction fees in the application’s token, its market value will increase. This business model benefits the application and its user base, establishing a symbiotic relationship.

5. They let you gain full governance and control of the application

In contrast to decentralized apps on general-purpose blockchains, application-specific blockchains provide full governance and control over infrastructure. They enable stakeholders to manage their own chain compared to shared blockchains from a broader, separate community.

Single-application blockchains align the interests of both the protocol and the application. They make it easier to adopt beneficial improvements tailored to specific needs, such as solving common problems with Apple screen time. 

In industries such as automotive, blockchain securely logs sensor and operational data for AI-driven performance improvements. Blockchain’s openness assures audit records and adherence to safety rules, increasing accountability for AI decisions.

To the bright, decentralized future

Blockchain technology undeniably shapes the future of decentralization, especially through application-specific blockchain platforms that promote decentralized networks. These platforms offer potential benefits, such as:

  • Customization and optimization
  • Flexibility and scalability
  • Privacy and security
  • Cost-efficiency
  • Governance and control

Whether you’re a developer, entrepreneur, or consumer, capitalizing on blockchain technology is essential. Utilizing application-specific applications can significantly impact your transactions. The ongoing technological progress and development in this field will further drive innovation, leading to more decentralized networks.

Application-specific blockchains are the future of decentralization—and we’ve only just begun!

Tổng hợp và chỉnh sửa: ThS Phạm Mạnh Cường
Theo Crypto News