The Internet Computer Protocol provides a fast and efficient blockchain to support decentralized Web3 services;
ICP is the Internet Computer Network’s native utility token, used to facilitate network governance and reward network participants;
The Internet Computer uses innovative technologies such as chain key cryptography to run its platform.
The Internet Computer Protocol is a blockchain network that aims to bring greater efficiency, speed and decentralization to computing and data storage. The project aims to address the shortcomings associated with the traditional Internet, such as service monopoly, poor system security and misuse of personal data.
The Internet Computer has three characteristics that distinguish it from other blockchain networks:
Thanks to a simplified user interface, anyone can create a decentralized application (dApp) on its blockchain platform;
ICP runs on a decentralized network with dedicated hardware built by independent parties, rather than a cloud maintained by centralized data servers;
Blockchain can process transactions quickly, which sets it apart from other cryptocurrencies where transactions can take 30 minutes or more to complete.
The Internet Computer Network’s native utility token, ICP, is used to facilitate network governance, compensate nodes that perform computations, and reward participants for participating in its ecosystem.
What are Internet Computer and ICP?
The Internet Computer Protocol connects a sovereign network of specialized devices to form a "world computer" for the decentralization of Web3 services.
Web3 Promoter
Web3 platforms are able to leverage the internet computer blockchain to solve privacy issues on traditional social networks, which pose many privacy issues for users, share sensitive information with companies, and inundate members with ads. Users may be asked to agree to general terms and conditions when signing up for these platforms, but cannot influence them.
Users of decentralized social networks built on the internet’s computer blockchain can log into these platforms cryptographically using Face ID on their phones or fingerprint sensors on their laptops, and they can also store files and share media at web speeds, or use chat messages to instantly transfer NFTs and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. These services can make their users owners and team members by airdropping governance tokens from their governing DAOs to people who recommend other users or help with tasks like content moderation.
Services like this are being built today on the Internet Computer blockchain, which acts as the world computer, capable of hosting even the most demanding Web3 services.
World Computer
The Internet Computer blockchain achieves full decentralization because it allows developers to build online services without relying on traditional information technology (IT) such as cloud computing services, databases, and network servers, which are centralized, insecure, subject to censorship, and generally unreliable.
Because online services built on the Internet Computer can run without the help of traditional IT, they are completely decentralized.
Developers build services using smart contract software called “containers” that can interact with the network and other blockchains without the need for bridges, and containers are able to scale and operate with efficiencies comparable to traditional IT.
When building Web3 services using other blockchain ecosystems, the traditional IT used can be replaced by Internet Computer smart contracts, providing more efficient decentralized data storage and processing.
Developers can extend other blockchain services and build SocialFi, GameFi, and Metaverse Web3 services, DeFi channels for their own web experiences, and enterprise systems using Internet Computer smart contracts.
Today, Internet computers can host and serve modern social networks without help.
On the Internet Computer, smart contracts pay for their own computation (aka “reverse gas”).
Users can create sessions with online services, allowing them to transparently interact with the blockchain multiple times, and Internet Identity (II) enables users to cryptographically authenticate and create sessions using security features built into their personal devices, such as Face ID on a phone or a fingerprint sensor on a laptop.
Community DAOs can control services entirely from the blockchain and apply feature updates and configurations proposed by developers, which further decentralizes services by allowing them to run autonomously as a protocol, improving security and protecting developers from regulators.
Web3 services could reward end users with governance tokens from a community DAO — for example, if they help with content moderation, or advocate for the service by referring new users — making them part of the owners and team, driving viral growth.
The Internet Computer was created by the Internet Computer Protocol, whose key token is called ICP.
How does the Internet Computer Protocol work?
The Internet Computer blockchain runs on a sovereign network of dedicated “node machines,” much in the same way that the internet runs on dedicated network routers. Node machines are standardized hardware that is run by independent node providers around the world using autonomous data centers.
These nodes are connected to each other over the Internet using the Internet Computer Protocol (also known as ICP). Using the ICP protocol, the nodes form the Internet Computer blockchain, which acts as a public world computer.
Chain Key Encryption
ICP includes a new cryptographic framework called “chain key cryptography,” which enables blockchains to create public “chain keys” and then sign messages using distributed private key material.
Chain key cryptography uses a single public key to allow connected devices to verify the authenticity of artifacts from the Internet Computer blockchain, in contrast to traditional blockchains that require large amounts of data to verify even small artifacts.
Subnet blockchain
The Internet Computer forms multiple "subnet blockchains", which are independent blockchains found on the network that can integrate with each other to increase their capacity. These are true subnets because they are transparent to smart contracts and combine to create a single infinite blockchain, similar to how subnets extend the Internet but are invisible to applications using the Internet.
The subnet blockchain uses a novel consensus system and cryptographic framework that allows applications to interact with it securely without the need for a local node. Applications can simply check the chain key signatures of messages exchanged during the interaction. Valid messages not only indicate that the messages from the blockchain have not been tampered with, but also that the subnet blockchain is operating normally and has not been compromised.
The Internet computer network is controlled by a main subnet blockchain that runs a high-level DAO called the Network Nervous System (NNS). This DAO instructs nodes how to build the network. Nodes can judge the authenticity of instructions by checking the validity chain key signature - because the chain key of the NNS subnet always remains unchanged.
NNS instructs nodes to combine to form a subnet blockchain, and because of the way cryptography works, nodes can be added and removed from a subnet at any time without changing their chain keys.
Since subnet blockchains do not need copies of each other’s states to validate them, they exchange messages directly and the network can increase its capacity simply by adding new subnets.
An application only needs to know the chain key of an NNS subnet to interact with any point in the network, because it signs the chain key used by the subnet, and the subnet includes a proof that its chain key was signed by NNS using its signature.
Container Smart Contract
When interactive web content runs in a browser, it verifies the chain key signature on the content and the response provided by the “container” smart contract hosted by the Internet Computer.
Container smart contracts are software “actors” consisting of WebAssembly bytecode and the persistent memory pages in which it runs, which allows multiple smart contracts to run deterministically in parallel on a single subnet.
Container smart contracts are very powerful and can be used to build anything, for example, multi-block transactions (computations) as well as daemon smart contracts that are automatically called periodically by the blockchain are possible.
A new development is that the protocol’s chain key cryptographic framework has been extended to allow smart contracts to manage accounts and sign transactions on other blockchains. For example, an Internet Computer smart contract can create Bitcoin addresses and send and receive Bitcoin, making it possible to build native DeFi systems for the Bitcoin network.
Another application is creating a decentralized web experience for Ethereum, where Internet Computer smart contracts can create and sign Ethereum transactions and then query the results using HTTP outbound calls.
Who created the Internet Computer (ICP)?
The Internet Computer blockchain is developed by DFINITY, which was founded in 2015 by Dominic Williams.
The DFINITY Foundation was established in Switzerland in October 2016 to expand the project’s research and development efforts after a period of incubation, and it first raised funds through a public ICO in February 2017.
This was followed by several funding rounds in 2018, raising over $150 million from prominent investors.
The DFINITY Foundation is based in Zurich and operates a research center there, and it operates another center in California, as well as a number of remote teams.
Why is the Internet Computer (ICP) valuable?
The ICP token has three main use cases:
First, ICP provides a source of Cycles to fuel smart contracts when performing calculations. When ICP is converted into Cycles and destroyed, it disappears, thus forming a deflationary mechanism.
Secondly, ICP can be staked in the Cyber Nervous System DAO that controls the Internet Computer blockchain to create voting neurons, which will generate rewards for users when they participate in governance;
Third, ICP acts as a store of value by allowing users to invest in decentralized sales run by Web3 services.
Why buy an ICP?
Investors may find the Internet Computer attractive because it aims to create a blockchain platform to speed up transaction settlement times and have theoretically unlimited capacity.
ICP aims to build a modern internet capable of hosting applications of any scale, from DeFi and smart contract applications to tokenized internet services and websites, and may also be of interest to those who want to add ICP to their portfolio.
Additionally, developers and investors may find ICP platforms attractive for building open Internet services that will provide products and services that have the potential to replace centralized large technology companies.
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