No matter how humans progress, communication remains a basic need, and the digital age has brought countless online tools to connect people together. The transition from postcards to Discord groups has been quite rapid.
Instant messaging apps with a social element, such as Slack, Discord, or WhatsApp, are communication tools for hundreds of millions of users around the world, with both individuals and businesses taking advantage of the rich functionality and ease of use of such apps.
However, as communication power becomes increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few centralized service agencies, a series of problems arise:
Privacy and data security: Centralized platforms store user data on servers controlled by a single entity, making them an attractive target for hackers and raising concerns about how these companies use the data for advertising or other purposes;
Censorship: Centralized entities can censor or moderate content based on their policies or external pressure, arbitrarily removing content or entire communities;
Service outages: Centralization means that if a service's server fails, every user will be affected, creating a single point of failure.
Monetization and Advertising: Centralized platforms may prioritize profits over user experience, resulting in intrusive advertising or selling user data to third parties.
How decentralization can improve digital communications
Decentralized networks provide solutions to the biggest pain points of communications in the Web2 era. Blockchain-based decentralization can enhance privacy and security by distributing data across multiple points on the network, making it more difficult for unauthorized parties to access or leak user information.
Without a centralized entity controlling the communications network, the risk of censorship and disruption can be minimized, and due to the user-centric nature of Web3, it is also easier to implement new monetization models that empower participants.
Over the years, the concept of decentralized applications (DApps) for instant messaging has grown rapidly, spawning multiple instances, however, providing on-chain communication with Web2-like functionality is easier said than done, and most DApps attempting to provide Web2-like functionality have encountered significant obstacles.
While decentralization can enhance privacy and reduce censorship, it often comes at the expense of performance and user experience. For example, achieving real-time communication on a decentralized network (which is critical to user satisfaction in messaging apps) becomes more complicated due to increased latency and inconsistent data synchronization between nodes.
Furthermore, most DApps compromise by handling user-facing front-end functionality off-chain in order to maintain performance. This approach undermines the principle of decentralization and limits the functionality and scalability of these applications. Therefore, while DApps represent a promising frontier in digital communications, their current implementations are often incomplete and do not fully leverage the benefits of blockchain technology.
Large-scale full-chain communication
OpenChat is an encrypted messaging platform that aims to usher in a new era of digital communications, leveraging the power of blockchain technology to provide a unique decentralized chat experience. The platform promises to provide users with enhanced security and autonomy, giving it a prominent position in Web3 development and making it the obvious choice for those interested in the future of online interactions. OpenChat runs digital communications end-to-end (including the front end) on the Internet Computer (ICP).
OpenChat is made possible by ICP, a blockchain network designed to extend the functionality of the Internet, providing a platform for smart contracts and DApps to run directly on the blockchain at network speeds. ICP's unique infrastructure is designed to unlock the full potential of DApps, helping them run at traditional Web2 speeds while keeping the entire process on the blockchain.
Running on ICP enables OpenChat to offer the same performance and feature set as Discord or Slack, while providing all the benefits of decentralization, including data security, reliability, and censorship resistance. In addition to traditional chat functions, OpenChat is also equipped with crypto-native features that allow users to send and receive tokens in the form of chat messages and exchange tokens through integration with exchanges or in a peer-to-peer manner.
The communication DApp recently launched video and voice chat support. The initial version includes one-to-one video calls in direct chats and group video calls of up to 20 people in private chats. The second phase of OpenChat will target community broadcasting.
Web3 chat app managed by users
The decentralized and end-to-end on-chain communication concept proposed by OpenChat was warmly welcomed by the ICP ecosystem, and the project raised more than 1 million ICP (worth $5.5 million at the time of fundraising) in five hours in March 2023, becoming a fully functional decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) led by its shareholder community.
As part of the ICP ecosystem, OpenChat is now controlled by a DAO and uses CHAT as its governance token. OpenChat co-founder Matt Grogan said at the time that CHAT token holders will be able to govern the platform and have a say in the future of OpenChat.
In August, after successfully transitioning to a DAO, OpenChat allowed users to create communities — servers with a Discord-meets-Slack style that allowed group admins to create subgroups for more targeted conversations, and users to find communities based on common interests or create their own.
OpenChat co-founder Julian Jelfs shared plans to enable OpenChat's community features so that projects can integrate it as a communication tool on their own websites.
Decentralized Communications Roadmap
One of the main goals of the DApp is to introduce end-to-end encryption for chats in 2024 to provide superior security and privacy, and OpenChat’s roadmap also includes a complex tokenization system for rewarding users who post key content with CHAT tokens.
The development team is fully committed to keeping pace with major Web2 competitors and leading innovation in Web3, which means OpenChat’s feature set will evolve and expand with advances in digital communications.
OpenChat participated in the global ICPCC event that has been held, which demonstrated how ICP technology can enhance decentralized applications on any blockchain.
Fully decentralized platforms such as OpenChat aim to address privacy, security, and centralization challenges by providing enhanced privacy, reduced censorship, and a user-managed ecosystem that promises to protect user data and empower users through community-led governance and innovative monetization strategies planned for the future.
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