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Can it be ... Do we have an Ethereum Killer? Or is it bullshit again?

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Authored by: @hetty-rowan


Do we capitulate or not? Time to look for a new GEM.

Today it is time to look again for the GEMS under the crypto ... but wait, are there any GEMS to be found at all now that everything has taken such a huge blow. I mean, all crypto has hit down and most of the alts have hit even farther down than Bitcoin. The Bitcoin dominance is back to the level that you can say with certainty, What Bitcoin does, all alts are followed. Nothing alt-season, if any!

At the moment it is easy to trade, you follow the price of Bitcoin, and if you know where the resistance of Bitcoin is, you also sell your alts there, because when Bitcoin dives, your alts also dive. That much can be said with certainty at this point in the cycle. Whether it's a bull or bear market doesn't even interest me.

Anyway, what are still nice alt coins to look at the moment?

And then I actually come to the conclusion, there will always be alt coins next to Bitcoin, and the ones that stick the best now, THAT are the alt coins to keep an eye on.

I chose one of those coins for today to tell you more about it.

On May 11, 2021, not even that long ago, there was suddenly a coin among the top 10 coins on Coinmarketcap that had never been there before. In just one day, this coin stormed into the top 10. Probably because it got listed on 2 major exchanges one day. This day INTERNET COMPUTER (ICP) was listed on Coinbase Pro and on Binance. And that does not happen every day for a coin, that they are listed on two major exchanges at the same time. Getting on either one, let alone both on the exact same day is an achievement in itself.

Time to take a look at what the Internet Computer Protocol means.

Team from The Internet Computer

The Internet Computer (ICP) was built by the non-profit organization DFINITY. DFINITY is a Swiss non-profit scientific research organization that oversees research centers around the world. DFINITY has locations in Japan, the United States and Germany. DFINITY was founded in 2016 by CEO Dominic Williams. Dominic is a crypto theorist and entrepreneur. You can also call him a scientist, as he has several studies to his name and has proposed new ideas such as "The 3 E's of Sybil Resistance". He also previously ran an MMO game that used his own blockchain system and housed millions of users. A real all-rounder.

The Internet Computer was founded and first announced in 2015, then conducted an ICO in 2018, raising a total of $ 195 million. DFINITY's mission is to build, promote and maintain The Internet Computer:

Our mission is to build The Internet Computer, thereby reinventing the Internet as a computer that hosts secure software with superpowers.


The team behind The Internet Computer consists of many of the world's top cryptographers and experts in blockchains and programming language. Collectively, DFINITY contains nearly 100,000 academic citations and holds as many as 200 patents.

Currently, DFINITY has 189 employees, 3 research centers and the team regularly holds events where they give presentations about The Internet Computer.

What is The Internet Computer?

The Internet Computer (ICP), like any other smart contract platform such as Cardano (ADA), Polkadot (DOT) and Binance Smart Chain (BNB), competes with Ethereum (ETH). Like all the aforementioned crypto projects, The Internet Computer is a layer 1 blockchain, or a first layer blockchain. This means that The Internet Computer has its own blockchain network with its own nodes that control the network. Many of the crypto projects you know are layer 2 projects that build on top of another blockchain. For example, Uniswap (UNI) is building on top of the Ethereum blockchain and PancakeSwap (CAKE) is building on top of the Binance Smart Chain.

The Internet Computer therefore describes itself as "The Last Layer 1 Blockchain". The purpose of The Internet Computer is to extend the functionality of the public Internet by hosting the backend software. In non-developer language, this means that The Internet Computer wants to become a global computer platform on which developers can build.

Using The Internet Computer, developers can build not only Ethereum's well-known dApps, but also websites, corporate IT systems, and Internet services, by installing their code directly on the public Internet. Developers no longer have to work with server computers and commercial, centralized cloud services.

The Internet Computer is an open-source crowd computing platform designed to transform the traditional Internet into a new, secure, decentralized Internet. The Internet Computer therefore has a rather ambitious mission. DFINITY, the organization behind The Internet Computer, has developed ICP in such a way that it is able to 'host' a new, modern internet, in which all kinds of applications run on The Internet Computer.

Competition with Big Tech

Big Tech companies such as Google, Microsoft and Facebook have enormous power today. The main purpose of such companies is to obtain a monopoly position. For example, Google has a monopoly on internet advertising.

The problem that The Internet Computer outlines is that the biggest players in Big Tech are so big that they oppose innovation. This is also called "Too big to fail". DFINITY indicates that there are thousands of entrepreneurs around the world with fantastic internet services, but thanks to Big Tech, actually establishing them is almost impossible. In many cases, small internet services are bought directly by these Big Tech companies.

According to DFINITY, the problem stems from the fact that internet services share their data and functionality via APIs built by Big Tech companies. An example of this is Zynga, which was the largest social games company using Facebook's APIs. One day when Facebook changed its rules to the detriment of Zynga, the company lost 85% of its value. The power that Facebook has in this example is what DFINITY wants to take away with The Internet Computer.

Due to this problem, many venture capitalists will not invest in smaller startups with services that rely on Big Tech's APIs. After all, Big Tech can change course at any moment and push these startups to the abyss. Even if the startups have a unique, innovative and valuable idea, they can be capped by not being able to raise enough capital. This is not only a problem for these startups, but also for us, because innovation is prevented. The Internet Computer addresses this problem by providing technology that supports the creation of a new kind of "open Internet service" that runs as part of the fabric of the unowned Internet. The Internet Computer can provide users with better guarantees about how their data is processed, but also ensures that developers can create permanent APIs that they can be sure will never be revoked or changed by a company.

This is partly due to the decentralized and immutable property of blockchain technology. For example, with The Internet Computer's software development kit, an open-source and decentralized equivalent of Facebook can be created that provides an API that other internet startups can use, without fear of revoking or modifying the API. An important goal of the Internet Computer is to redesign the most important internet services in an open source and decentralized form, so that monopolistic Big Tech companies no longer have control over your data.

The ultimate goal of The Internet Computer is to create a much more dynamic, collaborative, richer and ultimately more successful internet ecosystem.

How does The Internet Computer work?

Just like any other layer 1 crypto project, The Internet Computer's network must be secured. Ethereum does this with the Proof of Work consensus algorithm and is in the process of moving to Proof of Stake.

The Internet Computer is based on a blockchain computer protocol called Internet Computer Protocol, which is also where the ticker ICP comes from. This protocol combines the collective computing power of a large number of nodes into a single computing platform capable of supporting applications of any scale and complexity.

The scalability of the network up to "web speed" is achieved using Chain Key Technology. This technique, currently only known from The Internet Computer, ensures that transactions on the network are completed within 2 seconds.

The Internet Computer does not find those 2 seconds fast enough to be called user-friendly, and therefore smart contract transactions are divided into 2 types. The "normal" transactions and "query transactions".

The second type of smart contract transactions are not stored on the blockchain, but are immediately deleted. This ensures that these transactions can be completed within milliseconds.

With The Internet Computer, smart contracts are broken down into secure code units known as "canisters". These canisters are the computing units that function as individual applications or functions. End users such as you or me are able to communicate with these canisters, for example via a website or an app. Ultimately, the intention is that the user experience will be very similar to the internet of today, but that the background, the back-end, will improve on it.

The difference with the traditional internet is in the fact that the internet computer directly hosts and stores data on the blockchain, instead of a centralized database. On the main chain, a network of data centers can launch nodes that execute and control the ICP protocol, as is done by nodes and miners on the Bitcoin network. The network itself is made up of a hierarchy of building blocks. At the bottom are the independent data centers that run specialized hardware nodes. These node machines are combined to create subnets. These subnets create and host the canisters.

Reverse-gas model These canisters distinguish The Internet Protocol from the majority of crypto projects. Canisters can stream web content directly, without intermediaries, to the end users. As a result, companies and developers no longer have to host the front-end of an application or website on a centralized cloud hosting platform, but can arrange all this within such a Canister.

What also makes the canisters unique is that they are "pre-charged" with "cycles", which is The Internet Computer's equivalent of Ethereum's gas.

As a result, the user does not pay the costs for the use of dApps and other smart contract applications.

Making canisters pay for their own performance is also called a "reverse gas" model. Because the Internet Computer uses this model, users who do not own tokens can easily interact with the smart contracts. It even goes so far that they don't even need to know that the service runs on a blockchain.

More decentralized DeFi

With this, The Internet Computer makes the internet and dApps a lot more decentralized. As you may know, DeFi dApps are 'decentralized' because you make a transaction without an intermediary and data is stored on the blockchain, often on the Ethereum blockchain. For example, a transaction between Jan and Piet on Uniswap is registered on the Ethereum blockchain.

We call this the back-end of such a dApp. The front-end, or the Uniswap website with which you interact, is not decentralized at all. That website also has to be hosted somewhere, and for the time being that often happens on centralized cloud hosting platforms such as Google Cloud and Amazon Web.

It is not surprising if you have lost your way a bit now. The technology behind The Internet Computer is quite complicated. It is not without reason that DFINTY has been working on The Internet Computer for years.

An important part of The Internet Protocol are therefore the canisters. The Internet Computer is the world's first blockchain where front-end and back-end web experiences can be built with smart contracts (canisters) served directly to the end users in a browser. This creates a completely new playing field for blockchain developers to build hyperscale, mass-market services, all on-chain. The world's most popular social media apps, e-commerce websites, DeFi platforms and even business systems can all be reimagined and developed as open-source services with tokenized governance.

The Internet Computer Token Utility

This tokenized governance brings us to the next important topic: the ICP token. The ICP utility token is the primary mechanism that allows the community to participate in the governance of The Internet Computer. Such a token is also called a governance token.

Network Nervous System

A separate system has been set up for these governance tasks, the Network Nervous System. The Network Nervous System is a decentralized, tokenized governance system that is completely open. Anyone in the world can submit a proposal to the NNS, and if passed, it will be executed immediately, fully automatically, allowing the network to adapt and evolve in real time based on the community.

The Network Nervous System can perform tasks at any time, such as upgrading node machines to update the protocol or applying security fixes, adjusting economic parameters, or creating new subnet blockchains to increase network capacity. The Network Nervous System runs within The Internet Computer's protocols and is able to make these changes without interrupting network operation or breaking security.

The Network Nervous System works by enabling users to stake ICP governance tokens to create "tuning neurons." So, similar to other governance systems, such as Polkadot's, users have to stake the native token. The Network Nervous System is thus a variation on the Proof of Stake mechanism, in which the ICP token has a governance use case. Users are incentivized to create voting neurons as they earn rewards for voting on proposals. Rewards take the form of newly created ICP tokens created by the Network Nervous System.

Cycles

The ICP tokens can also be resolved and converted into cycles, which are then used to run websites and applications and to feed calculations on The Internet Computer via canisters. Cycles can best be compared with Ethereum's gas. Gas is used to make transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. In general, all canisters consume resources in the form of CPU cycles for execution, bandwidth for routing messages, and memory for stored data.

As described above, The Internet Computer uses a reverse gas model. Canisters maintain a reserve in cycles to pay for the communication, execution and storage costs consumed by their applications. The costs of calculations are expressed in units of cycles.

By setting limits on the number of cycles a program can consume, the platform can prevent malicious code from consuming resources. The relative stability of operating costs also makes it easier to predict how many cycles are needed to process, say, a million messages.

Roadmap vision

The roadmap of The Internet Computer can also be described as ambitious. DFINITY, the organization behind The Internet Computer, has created a roadmap for the next 20 years. The vast majority of crypto projects you see today have a roadmap of one to two years, with some outliers having a roadmap of 5 to 10 years, but 20 years is uncommon.

It is not an exact roadmap with clear release dates, but rather a vision of DFINITY for the future 20 years.

5 years

In five years, anyone interested in technology will have heard about The Internet Computer, and there will be a widespread understanding of its nature and purpose. Meanwhile, more and more entrepreneurs and development teams will choose to build open mass market internet services on the internet computer instead of using traditional IT.

10 years

In 10 years' time it will be widely recognized by the tech community that The Internet Computer is on a likely path that will one day make it humanity's primary computing platform for building systems and services. The "open internet" will now almost certainly prevail over Big Tech's closed and centralized ecosystem.

Furthermore, the extraordinary growth within the DeFi ecosystem will bring it up to par with the traditional financial industry, driven in large part by The Internet Computer.

20 years

In 20 years' time, the open internet will finally be significantly larger than the closed and centralized ecosystem of the Big Tech companies. Much of the information infrastructure, systems and services of our critical global society will now run on the open, unstoppable and tamper-resistant Internet Computer blockchain network.

This will profound transformations in how things work, supporting an unimaginably richer Internet ecosystem that contains more innovation, collaboration, and dynamism that drives positive economic growth around the world. Conclusion

At first glance, it seems absurd for a project to get a listing on Binance, Huobi and Coinbase Pro on day one and also get fifth place on CoinMarketCap, but after thorough research into this project, that's not so weird.

The Internet Computer is an ambitious project that has been a long time in the making, to say the least. The top 10 is full of layer 1 blockchains, such as Ethereum, Polkadot, Cardano and Binance Coin, so it is certainly not surprising to think that The Internet Computer belongs here.

Still, it is good to think about possible pitfalls of a project. For the time being, The Internet Company meets all requirements to be a good project:

Unique use case as a global internet computer and an alternative to centralized Big Tech services.

Not only focused on dApps, but on all applications and websites that will be made on the internet.

  • Transparent, competent and large team.
  • Distinctive blockchain hierarchy with renewed form of smart contracts.
  • Token applications for governance and on-chain transactions.
  • Extremely scalable network with fast transactions

The only real caveat that can be made is the fact that The Internet Company has just been listed and has not yet built an ecosystem of working products, as is the case with Ethereum.

And if you made it so far. Congratulations to you!


![lbi.png](https://images.hive.blog/DQmdAp6f2VXyAtFeWQG5msnEtGuSE8VTYdjGQt6aiKW1WAm/lbi.png)

A little note from @silverstackeruk to keep ya'll updated about CubLife

All CUBLIFE tokens are now issued

CUBLIFE (CL) had planned to distribute CL tokens Friday just past but there was a glitch in the matrix and wrapping LEO to bLEO was not happening due to whatever the problem was.

On Friday evening, we were able to send out all CL tokens to those that paid with HIVE or HIVEp and last night I was able to wrap the LEO and finally get the rest of the CL tokens sent out. Please check your wallet. You will notice that you received a little less CL token than quoted on Friday but LEO got destroyed over the weekend and not being able to wrap left no options but to wait.

That should be everyone now sorted and there will no more tokens issued until the 21st of next month so sit back and wait for your div's to roll in on Friday evening. There are currently 17,480.46 CL tokens in circulation, feel free to burn them. You'd be mad but feel free 😂

It's few days old but there are some cool CUBLIFE stats in this post by @amr008 who runs the CUBLIFE bot and has all the insight. You should follow him as I think he plans to release a CUBLIFE stats post every week and you won't wanna miss that.

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta