3 Dapps You HAVE to See

Key Takeaways

Hello world, it's Suriraj. Let's go through three DAPs you have to see. The first example is an Israeli startup called Luz. Laz is a decentralized version of Uber. Uber is a centralized ride sharing app. That means all data, requests, and decisions go through a central server owned by Uber. Uber decides how much drivers get paid and can see where your ride is going whenever they want to. Luz is decentralized because it's owned by the community instead of a few people who own a giant server. The app uses its own internal currency called Zeus tokens. These tokens are cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. Except there are no miners maintaining the network with computing power. So no proofof work algorithm. Instead, the miners are drivers who maintain the network with the amount of miles they've driven. They get rewarded with Zeus tokens based on how much they drive. It's an algorithm called proof of movement. Riders pay the drivers with the same tokens for rides. So how does everyone get tokens? Well, Zeus has something called a crowd sale. A crowd sale in a DAP is kind of like an IPO on day one. The creators of the DAP decide how many tokens they want to create and then sell them at some initially decided price. These tokens act as both currency in the app as well as equity. Since you are an early adopter, you should be rewarded for being one of the first to use the DAP. The more valuable the DAP becomes, the more valuable the tokens become. So, you can trade the tokens for fiat currencies to spend on other things if you'd like. Since the app is peer-to-peer, that means data moves from phone to phone with no server intermediary. And the app is open source. So if you want to develop for it or set up a team of developers and contribute, you can do that. You can post a proposal for how much you'd like to get paid as well. Same for designers or marketers. The community decides on fund allocation. There are different ways to reach consensus and these are being experimented with currently. But overall, it's a more democratic system where the people who use the app get to participate in how the app itself is run. The founders created a legal corporation and the bylaws require that they obey the will of the community vote. So, it looks like it's already off to a good start. The second example is called Open Bazaar. Open Bazaar is a decentralized eBay. eBay decides what you can and cannot sell, takes a hefty cut of all transactions, and you have to be in a country that allows eBay to use eBay. Open Bazaar is a platform that lets buyers and sellers connect directly to sell their goods without involving a third party to host the data and charge a transaction fee. The creators really wanted to build on the idea of creating a truly free trade platform. I mean, there never really has been anything like the bizaars of the past on the internet. Bizaars were peer-to-peer marketplaces where buyers and sellers could interact directly with one another without any middleman in between able to observe the transaction. Open Bazaar doesn't have its own token, but it does use Bitcoin for payments. They've got some dope algorithms to solve some interesting problems. For example, when it comes to the issue of identity, they use an algorithm called proof of burn to ensure that a seller can't create a million stores to avoid bad reputation. Proof of burn means that every time a user opens a store, they have to spend some bitcoins that disappear or burn. So, it's really expensive to make multiple stores. The app is also open source, so anyone can contribute. But if they want to get a team of people to continually maintain the app with quality, unlike a lot of other open source projects, they should issue an internal token eventually for incentivization. The third example is scenario. Scenario is a decentralized social network. This has been tried a few times before and failed. I'm looking at you diaspora. It always fails because the technology was never there and it's been a security nightmare to keep user data secure. But I think scenario has a good shot at making a valuable social network. It uses its own currency called the AMP. In traditional social networks like Facebook and Twitter, the middleman gets all the money for your data from advertisers. But since there is no middleman, since the app is peer-to-peer, if someone wants to pay for your data or attention, they'll pay you directly with AMPs. All users get a reputation score based on how many people like the content they post. The higher the reputation, the more valuable your content is. Since the network is peer-to-peer, no one can shut it down like the Chinese government did to Facebook. and you own your data. No one at Facebook can peer into your private messages with friends since your data is stored locally instead of on a server. Those are the few I could find that I thought were pretty cool. DAPs are the future of software, open- source, democratic, and fair compensation for all users. There are more out there and many, many more to be created in the future. Check out the links in the description below for more info, and please subscribe for more technology videos. Thanks for watching.