(Source)
After criptokitties congested the Ethereum network last year, more and more people began to understand one of the great potentials of blockchain technology: the dApps.
If you still do not know what dApps are:
dApps (decentralized apps) are applications that run in a blockchain, using network capacity (in this case, Ethereum) to perform transactions
Theoretically, applications we already use in our day-to-day work on the internet can work in a blockchain, in a decentralized, and safer way.
Although the dApps are already an idea that came together with the creation of bitcoin, and there are many projects under development to create a platform for the execution of dApps, the network Ethereum is still the most advanced in this regard, with more dApps in operation and in development.
The State of the dapps website lists 1779 dApps both in development and already in operation.
Currently, the dApps can be classified by some categories:
- Exchanges (markets)
The name says it all, and the great differential of dApps in the asset trading markets is decentralization. To conduct a trading, it is not necessary for you to trust your currencies to an exchange, at the risk of losing everything for something like hacking.
Your ETH / tokens are transferred to a smart contract without human intervention, and the trades occur within that contract.
Despite the idea of trading their assets without the need for anyone to own them, decentralized exchanges have a very long way to go. The speed of transactions is still very slow, and rates are relatively high and depend on network congestion.
- Collectibles
Who has not heard of cryptokitties yet? The cats you get in this dApp are tokens of type Erc-721, which unlike the Erc-20, these tokens can be programmed with many different characteristics. In the case of Criptokitties, these characteristics are the genes that determine how the cat will look.
Particularly I see a thriving perspective for this kind of token, because with it it is possible to create digital items that can not be copied, but only passed from one owner to another.
Imagine the potential that something like this has for the other types of digital media, such as music, books, letters, etc...
- Varied Markets
At all times a new dApp that uses ERC-721 tokens comes up, so why not create a market where you can buy / sell / change these tokens?
Some projects with this proposal are already in operation, with OpenSea being the most well known at the moment. There you can buy and sell the most varied collectibles.
Another example is the recently launched Augur which is a forecast market, where anyone can create the forecast they want, or bet on any of the forecasts created.
- Games
In addition to the obvious gambling games (dice, casinos, etc.) that always emerge when there is a speculative market, there are many interesting games projects running in blockchain, and many of them also using the ERC-721 tokens.
At the moment, most of them involve some kind of risk / speculation, such as Fomo3d, where there is a prize (2730 ETH at the moment) and participants compete to see who purchase the last key, but each new purchased key adds time to the watch.
But there is already other interesting projects under development like Gods Unchained that wants to be the first e-sport to run in a blockchain.
Or the Decentraland, where they will build a virtual world, focused on virtual reality, and you may even own a piece of land in this fictional world.
But if you want to continue the speculation, I suggest you get to know ETH.Town, which brings together several types of games already tried on the net (Pyramid, dice, collectibles, fighting, and many others to come). ETH.Town has a token of its own (ETIT) that entitles its holders to receive a portion of the money spent on the game as dividends.
The possibilities in this category are endless...
- Other types of dApps
There are still many proposals for dApps being developed, such as healthcare systems, digital identities, insurance, media, social platforms, property registration, etc.
Actually, the use of these dApps is still not good, with very low transaction speeds, high costs, and user interfaces still in their infancy.
But do you remember what the Internet was like in 1998? Well be prepared, because the dApps are at the same level of development.
The possibilities are indeed endless...
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CoinTracking - Cryptos Portfolio Manager
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Gods Unchained - Card game running on the blockchain