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
Most blockchains have transactions limits baked into the protocol (e.g. adding more servers to Bitcoin does not increase its transaction volume) or have layer 2 solutions to address scaling (e.g. rollups, etc...). The Internet Computer can process unbounded volumes of smart contract data and computation natively because it can grow in capacity by adding more nodes. That is how the network went from 19 blocks per second in July 2021 to 30 blocks per second by December 2021.
See Internet Computer Dashboard: https://dashboard.internetcomputer.org/
Network scaling is transparent to systems
Network scaling is transparent to smart contract code which means that dapp developers do not need to worry about details about the network in order for their dapps to operate or scale. For example:
Although subnets are the fundamental building blocks of the overall Internet Computer network, they’re transparent to users and software. Users and canister software only need to know the identity of a canister to call the functions that it shares..
Source: https://medium.com/dfinity/a-technical-overview-of-the-internet-computer-f57c62abc20f
Web serving
Dapp code hosted and executed on-chain=
Smart contracts on the Internet Computer securely serve web-content directly to users. This is unique among other projects where most L1 blockchains have dapps where a small part of the logic runs in a smart contract, but the actual consume-facing web or interface is hosted on a centralized cloud provider (e.g. AWS) instead of being served directly from the blockchain.
The Internet Computer serving dapps whose code is hosted and executed entirely on-chain unlocks the power of smart contracts.
=Reverse Gas Model (AKA "canister pays")
In dapps built on Ethereum (as an example), users require a wallet or tokens to use it. This slows down adoption of dapps because using a dapp is not as simple as clicking on a website link; it requires users to buy tokens, install browser plugins, etc... Internet Computer dapps have he "ReverseGas model" where users can interact with a dapp without having to pay in tokens since the canister can store a certain amount of cycles.
As an example, the Motoko Playground dapp is hosted and executed entirely on-chain and it does not require visitors to pay for the computation: https://m7sm4-2iaaa-aaaab-qabra-cai.raw.ic0.app/
Internet Identity
Internet Identity is a blockchain authentication system enables you to sign in securely and anonymously to dapps on the Internet Computer. This makes logging into dapps much easier and safer for dapp consumers.
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