With the rapid pace of progress and innovation blurred with at least as much buzzword-saturated hype, it can be easy to get lost in the growing wave of news, ads, and social media explosions surrounding the next big thing.
Two of these buzzwords that drive the conversation are “Web3” and “Dapp”. What makes it even more difficult is that you can’t just dismiss the news in either of these terms. Really world-changing innovations are being developed, and entire ecosystems are growing so fast that they feel like they appear overnight.
It might be worth taking a break from going over these buzzwords and taking an exemplary snapshot of how they’re being used – not next month, not years, but today – in a way that shows how important Web3 is, Dapps and just how close the two have become.
While there are many large ecosystems that could be explored, here we would like to target the Avalanche Blockchain ecosystem for its architecture, which requires the innovations that Web3 offers even more than competing ecosystems. However, this dependency also uses even more advantages through its client platform Dapps.
Why Web3?
While you can find a number of great detailed descriptions of the characteristics of Web3 (and what exactly Web1 and Web2 were), let’s assume you know the basics here and we will focus on a few key elements that make Web3 truly unique compared to the others make current version of the internet.
A key feature – and a key promise – for Web3 is its decentralization. This seems interesting on the surface, but it gets better the further you dig. Decentralization means that users cannot simply be censored because control is decentralized; however, if the dispersed community felt all the same, one member of the community could actually be censored. The difference is that control is heavily democratized and the need to adapt simply has no teeth. Decentralization means that a payment service cannot be denied or restricted; Payments can often be completed without personal information and cannot be discontinued because the payments are made peer-to-peer. Decentralization means robustness; Web3 servers are virtually immune to crashes because they are made up of a network of many, many computers around the world.
Why avalanche?
The Avalanche ecosystem is similar in many ways to competing ecosystems like Bitcoin and Ethereum. However, we specifically wanted to take a look at Avalanche Dapps, as it is built on not just one blockchain, but three interconnected blockchains. The Avalanche Exchange Chain (X-Chain) focuses on creating new digital assets for the platform; the contract chain (C-Chain) focuses on maintaining the smart contract of the ecosystem and its implementation of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM); and the Platform Chain (P-Chain) forms the basis for validators, platforms and subnets.
This complex coordination of interlocking and interdependent chains is incredibly important and relies heavily on the properties of Web3 to function. Without real decentralization, the ecosystem would not be able to achieve its enormous capacity of 4,500 transactions / second – compared to Bitcoin’s 7 Tx / sec. and Ethereums 14 Tx / sec. The three harmoniously working chains, using an advanced smart contract and above-average consensus distribution, create a decentralized ecosystem that is nearly impervious to hacks, censorship and downtime.
These elements tightly cascade to Avalanche’s many dapps where they use Web3 to work in ways that would be impossible with Web1 or Web2. Namely, they can thrive autonomously with programmable business logic by building on the smart contract, which saves development time and ensures a stable, predictable system. They greatly benefit their customers through self-custody, which does not require an intermediary to hold a user’s assets on their behalf. And they are able to operate without the threat of censorship or central agency targeting a user.
colony
What it is: Colony brings a solution to ecosystem farming. Because viable projects are cultivated throughout the ecosystem and the invested members of the DAO are able to harvest the yield.
Colony is a platform that combines the elements of DeFi, token-based economy and high yield investing; with a DAO-based approach that uses the community and is driven by it. Colony uses these elements to support early platforms through venture capital programs (VC) launched and established by the DAO.
You think early-stage #Airdrops are the coolest thing about @Colonylab? 🤔 ‘s staking mechanism
Airdrops are only 1 of 5 features you can access when you stake out!
We didn’t call it #EcosystemFarming for nothing! #CLY offers insights into the entire #avalanche ecosystem. pic.twitter.com/RWvEiiQesL
– COLONY 🔺 (@Colonylab) December 13, 2021
Why Web3 is Critical: Normally (Web2) none of these elements would be possible. Traditional VCs are highly centralized structures with often weird decision making processes that prevent many great platforms from ever getting up and running. This platform allows ordinary investors of all sizes to become part of the VC, raise capital for the projects they are voting on, and share the rewards when these platforms bear fruit. And without a Web3-enabled wallet, users would not be able to connect, invest, and achieve the high returns possible with a community-driven VC platform.
NFTrade
What it is: NFTrade is a wide-ranging NFT marketplace that gives users the option to create a fully decentralized NFT or choose to have an entire collection of NFTs for sale. Once listed on the marketplace, users can attract buyers, conduct peer-to-peer transactions using Web3-controlled wallets, and keep those assets in their own hands instead of delegating their custody to the platform.
Why Web3 is Crucial: The platform relies heavily on the Web3 aspects of decentralization and smart contracts to give anyone the ability to create their own NFT, which is a complex process without the right tools. The average user can leverage the platform to create a unique digital asset, associate it with a smart contract, and offer that asset for sale on a fully decentralized platform that connects them with many other buyers / sellers around the world.
Crypto blades
What it is: Cryptoblades is an immersive, fighting style blockchain game where users can buy characters and weapons and battle other players for real rewards. The heroes and weapons they buy are NFTs, and they are bought with tokens to ensure a decentralized platform and marketplace. When players sell assets for tokens, they can even use the tokens to generate DeFi-style income.
Why Web3 is Crucial: As with the other two dapps, Cryptoblades relies on its smart contract to manage the various players, their marketplace interactions, and token buy / sell / wagering actions. Users have Web3 wallets to ensure the protection and custody of their NFTs and tokens from the game and certain game elements are recorded in the chain to ensure fairness and transparency despite the decentralized nature of the game.
Wrap up
While everyone is talking about Web3 and Dapps right now, it’s worth seeing examples of they’re working hard to support real platforms, real users, and real ecosystems. None of this would be possible without Web3, and as Web3 matures, Avalanche and other blockchain ecosystems will continue to find use cases and support platforms that bring further innovations that leverage Web3 on their Dapps.
Photo by Shubham Dhage on Unsplash
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