Decentralized apps, also known as dApps, are here, and they’re here to stay. If you’ve never used one or heard of them, you might as well read up on it because they’re about to take the world by storm.

dApps or Decentralized Apps Explained

Hopefully, this Q&A will let you peek into the world of decentralized finance.

Where Can I Find a Decentralized App?

The first thing you need to know is that decentralized Apps can only be built on a smart contract network foundation.

This means that a blockchain such as Bitcoin cannot utilize decentralized applications as it was built to only allow the sending of its native coin.

Ethereum, on the other hand, can utilize them because they are coded to make up a program which, in turn, can be run to execute much more complex things.

Are dApps Open Sourced?

In what concerns its code, decentralized applications are open-sourced, which means anyone can check to see how they work.

When comparing it with centralized applications such as Facebook, for example, users will never know how their apps know what they had for dinner as their code is never disclosed.

However, dApps are transparent and allow users to know exactly how they are running.

Can dApps Be Censored?

Decentralized apps are censorship resistant which is a major benefit in what concerns freedom of speech and individual liberties.

By simply not having to answer to governments, corporations, or even any specific group of people, you will be assured that no one can control your money, and you won’t be censored because of your views and opinions (unless the dApp is actually written to do so), something which happens on a daily basis in centralized apps.

In what concerns downtime, decentralized applications will simply never go offline if properly decentralized, whereas their centralized counterparts might take scheduled maintenance breaks, a server problem, or even a major outage.

Moreover, since they are decentralized, there is no room for government interference in shutdowns as they are run by computers scattered all over the world.

What Are the Main Features of Decentralized Apps?

The main use cases of dApps are:

• Decentralized Finance: DeFi is a new monetary protocol which uses the blockchain to allow investors to borrow and lend, provide liquidity and earn interest, and use DEXs (decentralized exchanges) with really low fees and without needing any background checks or verification.
• Game dApps and Gambling dApps: Gaming and gambling are intimately connected with the dApp world.
• The decentralized application universe features everything from kitten breeding to horse racing, poker, roulette, slot machines, dice rolling and coin tossing.
• Marketplaces: Buying, selling, and creating NFT art is possible and currently trending. In fact, anyone can use some of the platforms out there as the interaction with the blockchain is unbelievably facilitated which has led to its widespread usage.

Are There Risks to Using Decentralized Apps?

There are many things you can buy through decentralized applications and, given their decentralized nature, many of these platforms do not report to the IRS, something which is raising concern as it leaves the liability in their users’ hands.

Is It Safe to Use dApps?

If you are hesitant about using dApps, here is a new way of seeing things: if you use any of the most popular centralized applications such as Facebook, Twitter, or even Gmail, you are simply using applications which run code made by their companies in order for you to interact with them.

A Decentralized application, on the other hand, will operate very similarly to those, except instead of reporting back to a company’s server, it will report to the blockchain, meaning you are simply interacting with the blockchain through your application.

Are Decentralized Apps the Future of Apps?

Blockchain technology has proven time and time again to be much more efficient than its centralized counterparts and switching from a centralized application to a decentralized one should be a straightforward process.

As such, you can expect new trailblazing dApps going forward.

It’s truly amazing how this technology is paving the ground for current apps, and we’re fairly certain that in the future, many if not all of us will be using them to some extent.