How DFINITY’s Internet Computer Aims To Reinvent The Internet

In 2018, CoinList facilitated the DFINITY Community Airdrop, the largest of its kind. This May, ICP utility tokens will be distributed to over 50,000 community members through CoinList. If you participated in the 2018 Airdrop, you can now confirm your Airdrop registration status here.

Since the 2018 airdrop, the DFINITY team has been focused on building the Internet Computer, a blockchain computer that runs at web speed with unbounded capacity. On May 7th, the team is holding a launch event for Mercury Genesis, which marks the public launch of the Internet Computer, when the network will spin out as part of the public internet.

CoinList also intends to support ICP trading and other network participation directly through CoinList Wallets.

In this piece, we’ll give a brief overview of the Internet Computer and what it means for the internet going forward.

1. What is the Internet Computer?

DFINITY positions the Internet Computer as the third great innovation in blockchain. The first innovation was Bitcoin, which introduced cryptocurrency, and is now playing the role of digital gold. The second innovation was Ethereum, which introduced smart contracts now powering the DeFi revolution. This third major innovation, according to DFINITY, introduces the first true blockchain computer, which will enable the world to reimagine how we build everything — using a blockchain with seamless, infinite capacity.

The Internet Computer is based on the Internet Computer Protocol (ICP), an advanced blockchain protocol that runs on a network of independent data centers around the world. It uses canisters — an evolution of smart contracts with higher scalability and additional functionalities — to create interoperable compute units designed for internet-scale services. The platform can serve user experiences directly to web browsers and smartphones, extending the functionality of the global internet so that it can natively host software, transforming it into a public compute platform. DFINITY is effectively enabling systems to be directly built onto the internet.

Using the Internet Computer, developers can create websites, enterprise IT systems and internet services by installing their code directly on the public internet and dispense with server computers and commercial cloud services. Through DFINITY’s Network Nervous System (NNS), users and developers become the ones deciding how the network operates and evolves, effectively giving the internet back to the users instead of centralized entities while maintaining net neutrality and fairness. Learn more here.

2. Who will use the Internet Computer?

The Internet Computer is designed for entrepreneurs, developers, and enterprises that are looking for better ways to build software. Many will use the Internet Computer to reduce complexity when building websites and enterprise systems without the need for legacy technologies such as cloud services, databases, and firewalls. Entrepreneurs and developers can take advantage of the emerging “open internet boom” to create pan-industry platforms, DeFi apps, and open internet services by building software directly on the public internet.

Through the use of canisters, users can simply deploy code, store data, and process computation through the Internet Computer Protocol (ICP). This allows users to build and deploy open internet services that can “run on the network itself rather than on servers owned by Facebook, Google or Amazon” (MIT Technology Review).

3. What is the ICP utility token?  

The ICP utility token (formerly known as “DFN”) is the primary mechanism that allows the broader internet community to participate in the governance of the Internet Computer network. When the network launches, there will be 469,213,710 ICP tokens in existence.

ICP tokens allow users to participate in managing the Internet Computer network, and as such are a form of utility token. You can do two things with ICP tokens:

1. Lock them inside the NNS to create “neurons,” which can vote on proposals and earn voting rewards.
2. Convert them into cycles, which are used to power computation by software canisters running on the Internet Computer.

4. What traction has the Internet Computer seen so far?

Developer teams have already started building on the Internet Computer. These include Origyn, a digital certification system for authenticating luxury products; Fleek, a service that makes it easy to build websites and apps on the open web; and apps like the open social network Distrikt (formerly LinkedUp) and CanCan, a decentralized video-sharing app modeled on TikTok.

Another example is OpenChat, the first decentralized chat app built on the Internet Computer. Earlier this year, concerns rose around WhatsApp's updated privacy policy, which required users to accept that their information may be shared with other Facebook-owned properties. This resulted in the privacy-focused messaging app Signal becoming one of the most downloaded apps and Telegram surpassing 500 million active users. At a recent DFINITY event in partnership with TechCrunch, software developers Hamish Peebles and Matt Grogan previewed OpenChat, the open, decentralized chat application they've built, and explained how developers can deploy apps by hosting the apps' front-end and back-end architecture on the Internet Computer.

CoinList will be supporting DFINITY in its Community Airdrop distribution. If you participated in the 2018 Airdrop, you can now confirm your Airdrop registration status here »

Register for the Mercury Genesis Event on May 7 here »

Legal Notice

This blog post is being distributed by Amalgamated Token Services Inc., dba “CoinList,” or one of its subsidiaries. This blog post and use of the CoinList website is subject to certain disclosures, restrictions and risks, available here.