Crypto & Us : Bite 25 (Internet Computer Protocol)

Cloud computing changed the way we used computers. That one revolution changed the way how we stored data, shared, transferred, and protected our data. Not only that, it led to a radical design change in the way the devices were built. Companies started removing additional ports from their devices because they were just not needed anymore. The Dfinity Foundation is aiming to disrupt cloud computing via the ‘Internet Computer Protocol’

1. The Internet Computer aims to decentralize the Internet whose proprietary ecosystems like hosting services, security services, servers, and websites are primarily controlled by a handful of corporations. Dfinity aims to use the blockchain to create an open protocol that will enable developers and companies to manage and develop software and systems without paying hefty charges to large corporations.
2. With the help of the Internet Computer, the enterprise IT systems, websites, and other internet services can be created by deploying the codes directly on the public internet thereby eliminating the need for entering into separate agreements with commercial platforms like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). This will dramatically reduce the costs by an estimated 80–90%. The platform will be more secure since it will be decentralized and spread across multiple systems globally.
3. The Internet Computer Protocol (ICP) is the advanced decentralized protocol with forms the Internet Computer that runs individual data centers along across the globe along with the spare power of the individual computers to form a seamless platform where the internet runs with the same security levels comparable to the smart contracts. ICP uses Chain Key Technology that is a 48-byte public key that allows it to split the smart contracts into ‘Update calls’ and ‘Query calls’ which can then be executed at a much faster rate thereby allowing the protocol to function at web-based speed.
4. The ICP was a project that was being worked upon for the last few years. Dfinity planned to launch the Initial Coin Offering for the ICP in 2021. The ICP token is the governance token on its native blockchain. It launched on May 7th, 2021 on exchanges like Coinbase and Binance where it received a tremendous response and its value soared to $630 in the next few days. However this exponential rise was followed by a series of tremendous fall in prices and within 50 days of its launch, the token is currently trading at almost 94% less than its high at $39.7. Pretty dramatic right?
5. This sudden crash raised a lot of suspicions and when people started digging in deeper they found out that the early seed investors who had the token at $0.03 per coin since 2017 dumped billions worth of tokens on the retail investors. They made gains ranging from 1,000x to 10,000x. This massive crash has definitely led to the loss of credibility for the much-awaited project.

A strong project with great potential is now struggling to get back the community support it commanded during the initial stages. Instances like these scare a lot of investors and rightly so. Imagine the plight of a retail investor waiting to buy ICP at its launch because of the research he did and the confidence he had in the project, only to see his investment getting wiped out in a matter of days. One can do only so much research, and to survive and get decent gains in this market, it is of utmost importance to diversify and invest only what you can afford to lose.