Overview:
Internet Computer (previously known as Dfinity) is a platform that enables people to create and use decentralized applications or Dapps in an extremely scalable format. It is trying to be an upgraded version of Ethereum.
The CMP of ICP on 4th March is $18.93
What is Internet Computer?
Internet Computer is trying to adopt the concept of a “World computer”. It is a blockchain that will allow you to build anything on top of it and unlike other smart contract platforms, it isn’t focused only on the application layer but also focuses on the entire internet stack. What this means is that it can be completely decentralized, extremely fast, and incredibly cheap to use.
It is currently #35 (based on Mcap) in the cryptocurrency market. Internet Computer’s native token “ICP” has a total supply of 477 million “ICPs” and currently has 208 million ICPs (43%) in circulation. It is currently listed on all the major exchanges.
What Problems does it aim to solve?
In the current cryptocurrency space, a lot of projects claim to be decentralized however there is a certain level of dependency on centralized service providers. This dependency comes in the form of storage, computing power, and front-end usage.
According to the white paper, when it comes to adoption, Ethereum is the leader but it has a lot of limitations such as extremely high Gas fees and slow computational speed making it slightly unusable. Due to this limitation, there are a lot of alternative players that are making a move in the market; however, they are not completely decentralized and are essentially hybrids with dependency on centralized service providers. There is also an element of false advertising. Many players are proclaiming themselves as a Web 3 Dapp however they are Web2 applications running on the cloud that interact with a blockchain.
Illustration of how web2 app is cloaking as web3 app
AWS, Azure, and Google cloud together represent 64% of the market share when it comes to cloud service providers. In simple language, this means that 64% of the internet is hosted on the top 3 service providers. This level of concentration brings a big problem, if these 3 players vanish from the market or pull the plug, 64% of the internet goes with it.
Google had banned Metamask back in 2018 temporarily and Most of the NFTs are actually hosted on the cloud. If the file is deleted, the NFT is gone.
What does Internet Computer do?
ICP’s main net launch was on the 10th of May 2021. ICP brings a decentralized and scalable platform to the world and solves the above-mentioned problem. They consider “smart contracts” as a general-purpose, tamperproof computer program whose execution is performed autonomously on a decentralized public network.
ICP aims to offer additional value compared to the existing smart contract platforms, in the following manner.
• It is CHEAPER especially when it comes to storage costs.
• It is FASTER when it comes to processing smart contract transactions.
• It is more SCALABLE
Internet computer archives these numbers for their Dapps with the help of canisters which are superior to smart contracts while on the other platforms Dapps essentially are a series of smart contracts. Given that canisters have the backing of strong data centers, it tends to provide speeds almost similar to the regular internet and there is no need for fees.
What is the utility of the coin?
The “ICP” token is well integrated into the Harmony ecosystem. It has 3 major utilities. It is used for governance, rewards for participation in the network and it is used as canister fees to host applications.
The tokenomics is inflationary in nature and has a declining inflation rate. “ICP” has a current total supply of 477 million “ICPs” and currently has 208 million ICPs (43%) in circulation. It is currently listed on all the major exchanges.
Competitor analysis.
Internet computer is trying to solve one of the biggest problems in the cryptocurrency space and is doing it in a creative manner. The top competition includes Ethereum and Solana and here are some statistics that indicate how it is beating them.
When it comes to Market Capital, Internet computer has huge potential as the topmost competitor is 100x away from the price levels.
The top competitors to Internet Computer
Team, Media, and community strength.
The team behind the project has vast experience and has worked at companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. When Vitalik Buterin was asked about the closest competitor to Ethereum, he cited that it was the internet computer’s team.
Internet computers’ social media strength is growing rapidly on Twitter and telegram. They have over 550K followers on Twitter and 50k members on telegram. Their media presence is also strong as they are often mentioned across multiple news articles.
Conclusion
Pros:
- Internet Computer is aiming to solve one of the biggest problems in the cryptocurrency space. The token is designed in such a way that if the project grows, the value of the ICP token will also grow. They have one of the best team in the industry.
Cons:
- Decentralization is their selling point however their infrastructure has several centralized components involved. To become a node operator, you need to get permission and a hardware device from the project itself. To use applications on this network, you need an internet identity thus eliminating the anonymity of the user.
- The project token launch was considered as a massive blunder and the price of the coin plunged by 95% as the internal team dumped their coins. This happened because the tokens allocated to the team did not have a vesting schedule while only the seed investors had it. The extremely concerning inference is that the team placed their own interest over the project’s interest.
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