Explaining the IOST Dapps Ecosystem
The native token of the IOS (The Internet of Services) is called IOST (Internet of Services token). The network chose an approach to solve scalability-one of the challenges of the blockchain. Asides creating an ecosystem that is capable of carrying out large transactions at a time, IOS also provides a network infrastructure that supports Dapps.
After the launch of its mainnet in February 2019, IOST wasted no time in creating a diversified DApp ecosystem. Thus, the network was able to attract the participation of Dapp teams and platforms willing to integrate to the IOS blockchain. The network offers refined operations and a friendly development environment for these platforms. Post mainnet launch, IOST was able to experience an explosive growth rate in Dapps with its users and transactions surpassing its Dapps counterparts.
The IOST Vision
The network built its function around its vision which is ingrained in its white paper. The vision is simple, address the issue of scalability and create a blockchain architecture that will be able to carry heavy services like Amazon and Facebook. Asides providing a platform that enables a decentralized mode of transferring online goods and services, IOS also supports the deployment of large scale Dapps. To achieve this, IOS had to integrate a series of innovation to its network. They include;
Efficient Distributed Sharding Technology
IOS had to employ this technology to improve scalability. The EDS is a technology that partitions the IOS network into subspaces with the use of a bias-free method thereby improving scalability. In simple terms, sharding helps to spread out the storage and computation workload across a P2P network. With this technique, each node is only responsible for maintaining the information that relates to its partition or shard and not for processing the entire network's transactional load. This means that in a single second businesses can process tens of thousands transactions.
Proof-of-Believability Consensus Algorithm
The POB algorithm is one of the best selling points of the IOST network. The algorithm is built on the believability score of a node’s past behavior and contribution. With this method, there is no need for mining which comes with numerous challenges (electricity consumption and limited capacity). The use of PoB can cause a reduction in the cost of processing power, the use of storage, and configuration when compared to Bitcoin’s Proof of Work protocol.
Atomix
Transactions may likely occur at cross shards, the use of the Byzantine Shard Atomic Commit (Atomix) will help maintain consistency across cross-shard transactions. This mechanism is very crucial in the system.
TransEpoch
TransEpoch is an algorithm that enables nodes to continue working while new nodes download and bootstrap history data. It is a node-to-shard transition assignment protocol that allows IOST to switch batches of nodes in and out of shards when transitioning between epochs. With the use of the TransEpoch algorithm enables the network to keeps the Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) consensus for each shard during the transition. It also keeps the shards secure to avoid enabling malicious nodes to take over the shard during the whole process.
Micro State Block (MSB)
IOST employed this mechanism to minimize the cost of storing and bootstrapping validators. With the use of Micro State Blocks, each shard will only have to store the headers of previous blocks and the blockchain state is shared across multiple shards. Thus, with the MSB generation protocol, instead of validating the entire blockchain, nodes will only have to validate the last part of the blockchain.
A Glance at IOST Dapps
IOST places a lot of emphasis on creating a decentralized and secure way of storing information and carrying out transactions. The network has over 40 Dapps in various fields and many of these apps are adopted by the public. IOST comes 4th on Dapp ranking on Dappradder.com and has 7 categories of Dapps listed on the platform. These categories include
Gambling
Game
Exchange
Finance
Tools
And Others
IOST Dapps include LiarGame, JUSTGAME - Endless Game, IOST Dex, IOST Voter, Virus Battle, 细菌大作战, XPET怪兽世界, IOSTVegas, IOSTWin, pirates and others.
Although Dapps are yet to gain mainstream adoption, we see that IOST Dapps are working towards adoption. The dapp with the highest users is the gaming Dapp XPET怪兽世界 with 501 users. While the Dapp with the highest transaction volume is the gambling Dapp iPirate with a tx of 662,513.
With over 2,000 Dapps in the Dapps ecosystem, IOST lays emphasis on reducing technical barriers and creating a DApp ecosystem that is able to collaborate with multiple DApp platforms. However, the figure of Dapp users seem to be on a decline and hopefully, the ecosystem improves for the mainstream adoption of Dapps through the IOST network.
