Internet Computer vision
The Internet Computer blockchain is a real "world computer" that removes the traditional limitations of smart contracts using advanced new cryptography and distributed protocols.
Vision and Value Propositions
Web speed
Smart Contracts are fast and performant to allow developers to build anything. The design goal is that developers can build consumer-facing experiences that are as fast as they would expect from centralized servers. Dapp developers do not need to choose between "smart contracts" and "fast."
From a blockchain POV, Internet Computer Performance performance tests shows the IC a finality of 200 milliseconds for query calls and 2 seconds for update calls. As of December 1, 2021, The Internet Computer can handle 2,500,00 queries per second and 1,500 update calls per second.
Environment and cost
Direct Costs
Unlike most blockchains, the efficiency and costs of the Internet Computer approaches is traditional IT stack so its is ecomically feasible to host dapps with lots of data and content.
For comparison:
| Blockchain | Storage Costs | |
|---|---|---|
| Ethereum | $350,000,000 USD per GB per year | |
| Internet Computer | $5 USD per GB per year |
Indirect Costs
Smart contracts as a "secure-by-default" that comes with data replication removes a lot of software complexity that developers do not need to build. The design intent is that these indirect costs reduce a large amount of code and time necessary to build and maintain software compared to traditional systems.
Network scales without limit
Can scale to process unbounded volumes of smart contract data and computation
Network scaling is transparent to systems
Network scaling is transparent to smart contract code
Web serving (true Web 3.0… dapp websites running on AWS is Web 2.0)
- Smart contracts securely serve web-content directly to users
- Users interact with dapps w/o having a wallet or tokens (reverse gas + Internet Identity)
Network Nervous System
- Automated in-protocol governance makes the network self-directed
- Network is constantly expanding, upgrading and improving, w/o downtime
- Seamless community-driven evolution and governance without disruptive hard forks
- Acts as a community fund that drives blockchain economy
Novel “canister” smart contract framework
- Orthogonal persistence (data lives in persistent memory pages)
- Actor model (deterministic parallelism, internally and externally)
- Access to perfect randomness
- Integration with other blockchains e.g. they have Bitcoin addresses
Service Nervous System (SNS) economic framework for dapps
- Advanced DAO can take control of a dapp
- Dapps run under the control of a community (full decentralization)
- Dapps run as extensions of the blockchain (microeconomy with macroeconomy)
- Dapps can raise funds into the SNS; funds controlled by community
- Cycles act as stable-value currency for DeFi