Decentralization in ICP: Critical Dapps on the IC

Summary

As a blockchain protocol, decentralization is very important to the design and implementation of ICP. This article is one of a subset explaining the design intent and the current state of the world when it comes to ICP decentralization. Its main focus is analyzing critical dapps on ICP. To see the whole picture, it is recommended to see the following articles:

• Decentralization in ICP
• Decentralization in ICP: Protocol Governance
• Decentralization in ICP: Infrastructure Governance

Background

There are dapps in the IC ecosystem which are critical to the overall community experience and which can be seen as common goods. Many of these are controlled by DAOs of their own. It is important to understand which these are and how decentralized they are.

Critical “Common Good” Dapps

The following smart contracts are not part of the protocol (as opposed to NNS Canisters which are part of the protocol), but they are commonly used by the community as common goods for the ICP community:

• Internet Identity
• NNS frontend dapp

Internet identity

Code

• https://github.com/dfinity/internet-identity

Canister

• https://dashboard.internetcomputer.org/canister/rdmx6-jaaaa-aaaaa-aaadq-cai

Governance

• Internet Identity is controlled by the NNS so NNS DAO voters decide on upgrades to the code. Here is an example of a proposal to update II: https://dashboard.internetcomputer.org/proposal/108655
• To understand the decentralization of the governance of the dapp, it is necessary to look at the decentralization of NNS voters. See Decentralization in ICP: Protocol Governance

Infrastructure decentralization

• This dapp lives on subnet uzr34.
• https://dashboard.internetcomputer.org/subnet/uzr34-akd3s-xrdag-3ql62-ocgoh-ld2ao-tamcv-54e7j-krwgb-2gm4z-oqe
• Table of decentralization for subnet uzr34: TBD

NNS Frontend dapp

Code

• https://github.com/dfinity/nns-dapp

Canister

• https://dashboard.internetcomputer.org/canister/qoctq-giaaa-aaaaa-aaaea-cai

Governance

• This dapp is controlled by the NNS so NNS DAO voters decide on upgrades to the code. Here is an example of a proposal to update it: https://dashboard.internetcomputer.org/proposal/109947
• To understand the decentralization of the governance of the dapp, it is necessary to look at the decentralization of NNS voters. See Decentralization in ICP: Protocol Governance

Infrastructure decentralization

• This dapp lives on subnet tdb26:: https://dashboard.internetcomputer.org/subnet/tdb26-jop6k-aogll-7ltgs-eruif-6kk7m-qpktf-gdiqx-mxtrf-vb5e6-eqe
• Table of decentralization for subnet tdb26: TBD

See Also

• Decentralization in ICP
• Decentralization in ICP: Protocol Governance
• Decentralization in ICP: Infrastructure Governance
• Weighted average of logs of NCs in infrastructure