The first blockchain capable of running smart contracts was Ethereum. But using Ethereum means users sometimes have to pay up to $50 per transaction; This is a very high figure for a technology that has not yet been widely adopted.
When I first looked at ICP two years ago, it was just starting to get going. behind Dfinity foundation positioned ICP as a replacement for traditional cloud providers, promoting it as a distributed computing engine and fog computing engine. Fast forward to today and I am delighted to see this evolve into a full-blown Blockchain. ICP is now positioning itself as a third-wave Blockchain solution with many interesting features.
One of the most attractive aspects of ICP is its reverse gas model. In this model, users do not pay for transactions; instead the owner of the box (the equivalent of a smart contract in ICP) pays. This model seems quite attractive as it encourages adoption. Moreover, the cost is extremely affordable. You only need a few dollars to run an app for a month, and five dollars can store a gigabyte of data for several months.
ICP has learned from Ethereum's mistakes and promises speed. The box is essentially built as WebAssembly, an actor system computational model. This means your box can exchange messages without intermediaries and create a distributed network of smart contracts that can communicate with each other at low cost.
Another exciting feature of ICP is its native integration with Bitcoin. network could lock Bitcoin into itself and facilitate cheap micro transactions. Currently the network has around 300 Bitcoins locked inside the Internet Computer Protocol. As a result, ICP is a player in the current Blockchain ecosystem and a potential cross-blockchain platform that can facilitate asset exchange. This is a promising development in the DeFi field, and we will see where it goes next over time.
The ICP network consists of clusters or subnets of Internet computers operating at the same runtime. They have local consensus with each other and can run multiple programs in parallel, making them much more scalable. They reach consensus when necessary, making the system faster and more scalable than Ethereum.
One of the most impressive features of the boxes in ICP is that there is no need for Oracle. They can make HTTP calls, interact with the Bitcoin network, and perform non-linear transaction tasks. This opens up a world of possibilities and powerful features.
I am particularly excited about the announcement that it is possible to not only store data in a box, but also encrypt data in a box. This means you can create a data network without access to data; only players and owners of the network can do this. This privacy-preserving feature can allow us to create VDM-compatible things as smart contracts or a privacy-preserving layer as a smart contract.
The governance of the ICP network is another protocol that sits on the same infrastructure. This sounds like a smart contract managing a network of smart contracts, it's a mind-blowing idea. The computational model as an actor model with message-passing interfaces is innovative, and I highly recommend reading the white paper for more information.
Subnets in the ICP network can communicate with each other and have a special keychain encryption scheme based on threshold signatures. This enables cross-network collaboration and interoperation. There is so much to explore and think about with ICP.
The time is coming for $ICP to give a performance that will amaze us all.