DigitalBits & Dapps — Food for Thought
DigitalBits aims to drive the mass adoption of blockchain technology, and close the gap between technological innovation and everyday use. Do decentralized applications have a role to play in this mission?
The hype behind decentralized applications, commonly referred to as Dapps, mirrored that of their cryptocurrency counterparts. Removing single points of failure and centralized control, and introducing concepts such as true asset ownership and censorship resistance, Dapps peeked the interest of investors and developers alike during the 2017 bull run. Just as Bitcoin was to become digital gold, it seemed that the future of applications was to be decentralized.
These projections stand far from the truth. Across the 1901 dapps tracked by dappradar, there have only been 177 487 users in the last 24 hours. Comparatively, centralized social media platform Facebook enjoys approximately 1.5 billion daily active users. This is the case despite massive security breaches suffered by centralized platforms, as reported by GBhackers in the “10 Biggest Data Breaches of 2018.” Another issue stemming from centralized platforms is the sale of user data. Billions of dollars worth in user information is accumulated and sold by platforms such as Facebook, Google and Amazon, with no compensation to the generators of this data. However, users on average are not porting to decentralized alternatives, which may suggest that Dapps are not the solution to driving mass scale adoption, at least not right now.
The DigitalBits protocol supports the creation of Dapps, but the team has veered in a different direction, one better aligned to promote blockchain adoption. Citing the lack of usage and functionality of current decentralized applications, DigitalBits engages an enterprise go-to-market strategy, targeting existing consumer applications, in order to enhance offerings and functionality. This approach allows consumers to interact with blockchain technology without altering learned behaviour, a major advantage considering humanity’s inherent apprehension towards change. Secondly, existing app integration instantly ports millions of users onto the blockchain. DigitalBits aims to have millions of accounts on-chain, actively interacting and benefiting from blockchain technology, whether they know it or not.
“Blockchain is revolutionary technology, but the Dapp ecosystem has become more of a developer playground than anything else,” says Michael Luckhoo, DigitalBits VP of Operations. “We need to bring this technology to the masses, in existing applications that people use everyday. The time for Dapps will come, but we need to lead people there, and throwing them into the Dapp fire is not the way to go about it.”
