The invention of Bitcoin and blockchain technology sets the foundations for the next generations of web applications. The applications which will run on peer to peer network model with existing networking and routing protocols. The applications where centralized Servers would be obsolete and data will be controlled by the entity whom it belongs, i.e., the User.
From Web 1.0 to Web 2.0
As we all know, Web 1.0 was static web, and the majority of the information was static and flat. The major shift happened when user-generated content becomes mainstream. Projects such as WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and others are nominated as Web 2.0 sites where we produce and consume verity of contents such as Video, Audio, Images, etc.
The problem, however, was not the content; it was the architecture. The Centralized nature of Web opens up tons of security threats, data gathering of malicious purpose, privacy intrusion and cost as well.
The invention of Bitcoin and successful use of decentralized, peer to peer, secure network opens up the opportunity to take a step back and redesign the way our web works. The blockchain is becoming the backbone of the new Web, i.e., Web 3.0.
History of blockchain
The invention of blockchain came to the mainstream after the boom of the Bitcoin in 2018. Have a look at the graph below; Bitcoin was at its peak around $20000.
But the technologies that power the blockchain network is not something new. These concepts were researched and developed during the ’90s. Have a look at this timeline.
The concepts, such as proof of work, peer to peer network, public key cryptography and consensus algorithms for distributed computing which powers the blockchain have been researched and developed by various universities and computer scientists during the ’90s.
These algorithms and concepts are mature and battle-tested by various organizations. Satoshi Nakamoto combined these technologies and ideas together and built a decentralized, immutable, peer to peer database primarily used for financial purposes.
Initially, we all thought that blockchain is suitable only for cryptocurrencies and not for other applications. This thought was challenged when Vitalik buterin developed the Etherum cryptocurrency with a new Smart contract feature.
Smart contracts changed everything. The ability to code your own application and run on top of blockchain was the answer to critics who thought that blockchain is only for currencies.
“Cryptocurrency is a small subset of the blockchain, like the Email of the internet.”
The smart contracts open up the wave of new applications. The viral game cryptokitties showcases blockchain can handle large end applications such as games.
Smart contracts are written in Solidity language and can be executed on Etherum network. The protocol and design of Etherum inspired the engineers to build an open source and blockchain agnostic platform to build decentralized applications.
DApps protocols
As I have mentioned earlier, Etherum smart contracts were among the first such technology that can be used to program the decentralized applications. The issue was that smart contracts were written by keeping transactions or money in mind.
Developers need multiple tools to build a full-fledged web application such as storage (database, files, index, etc.), message queues or event queues to facilitate the communication. Etherum address these problems by introducing Etherum Swarm and Etherum Whisper projects.
As you can see in the diagram above, With Etherum Smart contracts for writing contracts and swarm to store files that can be associated with contracts. To make the decentralized apps communicate with each other, Whisper can be used. All of these can run inside the decentralized browser such as Dbrowser.
Swarm is a distributed storage platform for an ethereum stack. The core objective of Swarm is to provide decentralized storage for ethereum public records. Swarm is supposed to save the DApps code base and data associated with it.
Swarm allows public participants to pool their storage and bandwidth resources to make the network robust and get paid in Etherum incentives. Fair deal.
Ethereum whisper, in a nutshell, is a protocol for DApps running on Etherum blockchain to communicate with each other, similar to message queues or event queues. Whisper provides low-level API’s to support communication between DApps. You can learn more about it here.
However, do you sense the limitations here? Well, the main issue is that this is entirely Etherum agnostic, i.e., all apps are written and run on top of Etherum blockchain. This change will increase the size of the chain significantly, and scalability will be an issue.
Other than scalability, adaptability will be an issue as well. We need a smooth shift from the centralized web to decentralized web. A shift where masses do not need to change everything for the sake of the decentralized web.
This is where our new protocol comes in, called the IPFS (Interplanetary file system) stack by Protocols labs.
Protocols labs is dedicated to building the decentralized web which runs in parallel to TCP/IP stack. This will make the shift from existing web to web 3.0 very smooth, and masses do not need to make a significant change to use the web 3.0.
Here is the stack.
Rings a bell? This stack looks pretty similar to TCP/IP protocol layers. Let’s learn about this in detail.
The IPFS stack is divided into three essential layers:
- Networking layer.
- Data definition and naming layer.
- Data layer.
Let’s learn about each of them in detail.
Networking Layer
One of the core challenges in the decentralized web is the peer to peer network and designing the protocols which work in a peer to peer network in parallel to the centralized system.
The Libp2p project addresses this challenge with protocols labs. Libp2p provides the modular stack which one can use to build peer to peer network in conjunction with existing protocols such as WebRTC or any new transport layer protocols. Hence, Libp2p is transported agnostics.
Features of libp2p:
- Libp2p is a modular networking stack. You can use all of it or use part of the stack to build your application.
- Libp2p provides transport and peer to peer protocols to build large, robust and scalable network application.
- Libp2p is transport protocol agnostics. It can work with TCP, UDP, WebRTC, WebSockets, and UDP.
- Libp2p offers a number of modules such as transport interface, discovery, distributed hash lookup, peer discovery, and routing.
- Libp2p offers built-in encryption to prevent eavesdropping.
- Libp2p offers built-in roaming features so that your service can switch networks without any intervention and loss of packets.
Libp2p is the solution upon which the networking layer of peer to peer can be built.
Data definition and naming layer
Content addressing through hashes is widely used in a distributed system. We use hash-based content addressing in Git, cryptocurrencies, etc. The same is also used in peer to peer networking.
IPLD provides a unified namespace for all hash-based protocals. Using IPLD, data can be traversed across various protocols to explore and view the data spread across peer to peer network.
IPNS is a system to create a mutable address to the contents stored on IPFS. The reason why they are mutable because the addresses of the content change every time the content changes.
Data Layer
The topmost layer in this stack is the data layer. Interplanetary file system or IPFS is the peer to peer hypermedia protocol. IPFS provides a way to store and retrieve the data across peer to peer network.
IPFS uses IPNS and Libp2p to create, name and distribute content across peer to peer network.
Anyone can become an IPFS peer and start looking for the content using hashes. IPFS peer does not need to store every data; they only need to store data created by them or the one they have searched in the past.
Features of IPFS:
- IPFS provides peer to peer hypermedia protocols for web 3.0.
- IPFS can work with existing protocols and browsers. This gives a smooth transition from centralized web to web 3.0.
- IPFS uses Libp2p to support peer to peer networking.
- IPFS data is cryptographically secure.
- IPFS can save tons of bandwidth in streaming services. For in-depth details, read this white paper.
IPFS is under development, and there are some fantastic applications built by developers that are running on top of the IPFS. One of the applications of my choice is d.tube. This is a decentralized version of YouTube with built-in incentive and reward feature provided by Steem blockchain.
IPFS also trying to solve the incentive issue. We can’t expect every person connected to the internet to act as a peer. In order to provide an incentive to those who participate and contribute value to the network, IPFS has created a coin called Filecoin which can be paid to peers in the network by the user.
Conclusion
Decentralized web or Web 3.0 is the future. There is a need to design a robust, secure and peer to peer network to tackle the issue in existing web. Etherum and IPFS are leading the path to develop the development suite for developers like us to start developing core applications that are needed to make a smooth transition from the existing web to decentralized web.
