The internet was initially introduced as a way to build a common neutral network which everyone can participate in equally for the betterment of humanity. During the first dot-com bubble much of this altruism faded as people realized it was easier to extract value from this neutral fabric by building centralized services which trap and monetise information.

So what happened to the initial dream of the web? Fortunately, there is an emerging movement which is intending to bring the web back to its original vision. It's the Decentralized Web or Web 3.0 and since you managed to find this page out of all the possible million others on the web, congratulations! You’re passionate about decentralizing the web - just like me!

Jason Griffey, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University describes the Decentralized Web as a series of technologies that replace or augment current communication protocols, networks, and services and distribute them in a way that is robust against single-actor control or censorship. Simply put it's an architectural system that builds services on the internet which do not depend on any single “central” organisation to function.

What’s the Problem With Centralization?

For much of their existence, centralized platforms have provided solutions and services to millions of internet users, across multiple continents with easy-to-use interfaces. The centralization of the internet basically started with its commercialization.

Without this commercialization we could argue the internet would not have survived the dot-com bubble. Users of the internet today don't just rely on it for general research or online shopping. We also use the Internet to pay bills, RSVP to invitations, work remotely with teams around the world and even internet banking. It has become a necessity for modern living.

Although the internet centralization has resulted in its expansion of service offerings its not without its shortfalls:

1. A user’s access to the Internet is at the mercy of their provider and the platform;
2. CEO's of large tech companies have turned these companies into gatekeepers of information and we have to trust them to use their power fairly and responsibly;
3. Through the creation of Terms of Service or Data Policies, internet users are required to agree with the collection of personal data which is often shared with Third Parties for monetary gain;
4. Disruptive tech startups today suffer a slow and painful death as tech-giants exploit their seemingly unlimited supply of cash to copy new features - either that or accept being acquired;
5. Centralized architectures, require companies to own centralized servers - which expose users to serious security and privacy incidents like data breaches and hacks which occur several times a year;
6. These architectures are also vulnerable to Denial of Service and Distributed Denial of Service (DoS/DDoS) attacks;
7. Centralized servers are single points of failure, when they fail, websites and applications that depend on them also fail.

A decentralized version of the internet would solve many of the problems that the current internet faces. Without a single point of failure, Web3.0 is resilient against cyberattacks. Data breaches also become near impossible without central data storage solutions. Users would once again have control and ownership of their data.

It's not lost on me, or avid internet users that there's an urgency to decentralizing the web. Listings the protocols and networks that will enable us to do this is relatively easy. However understanding the underlying technology of each decentralized protocol is usually a good deal harder.

In this post I want to introduce some of my favorite decentralized systems, deconstruct how they work, provide workarounds to some of the substanial bottlenecks within each network (both in itself and for other resources) and finally highlight my evolution theory for each system.

Decentralized File Sharing - IPFS

IPFS, the InterPlanetary File System, is a hypermedia protocol created and released in January 2015 by Juan Benet. It's a synthesis of multiple peer-to-peer systems like DHTs, BitTorrent, Git, and SFS simplified into one cohesive system that intends to evolve into the web itself, replacing the more commonly known HTTP protocol.

It's a network designed to create a `content-addressable`, `peer-to-peer` file (text or video formats) storing and sharing protocol in a distributed file system. By switching from the traditional location based addressing of the web, IPFS makes it possible to distribute high volumes of data with high efficiency and zero duplication.

IPFS Design & Unique Features

The IPFS Protocol is divided into a stack of sub-protocols responsible for different functionalities within the network. These sub-protocols though not independent in-themselves are integral to the integrity of the network. They are blended and intergrated for their unique properties.

Without going into a lot of the details that are comprehensively covered in the IPFS whitepaper, I'll highlight these subsystems with a short description of each:

• Identities & NodeId - Using the S/Kademlia crypto puzzle, nodes are identified by a NodeId, the cryptographic hash of its public-key. Although new nodes can be created for every new IPFS launch, users are incentived to maintain the same node;
• Network - Nodes on IPFS communicate through several stack features like the use of ICE NAT traversal techniques. IPFS also stores addresses as `multiaddr` formatted byte strings therefore able to function without reliance on or assumption of IP addresses. For example;

  an SCTP/IPv4 connection

  /ip4/10.20.30.40/sctp/1234/

• Node Routing - For nodes to find other peers' network addresses and serve objects, IPFS uses a *Distributed Hash Table* which enables any participating node to efficiently retrieve the value associated with a given key.
• BitSwap Protocol - In IPFS, data distribution happens through the block barter exchange. This is a BitTorrent inspired protocol where nodes have to provide direct value to each other in the form of blocks. In the marketplace each peer is looking to acquire a set of blocks (want_list), and has another set of blocks to offer in exchange (have_list).
• Merkle Forest - This is a map of all network objects linked cryptographically through the directed acyclic graph (DAG). The DAG intergration allows IFPS to a) uniquely identify content by its multihash checksum, including links b) detect content corruption using data checksum c) deduplicating content by equating objects to content and storing once.
• DNS Naming - IPFS uses DNS TXT records to map a domain name to an IPFS address. Users can edit DNS records, and use them to always point to the latest version of an object in IPFS. Because DNSLink uses DNS records, the names it produces are also usually easy to type and read.

IPFS is designed to be used in several ways and Protocol Labs has continued to expand this list. If we bundle all the possible ways IPFS could be used we can summarize to the solving of these 3 problems:

By intergrating great peer-to-peer technology from other successful systems - IPFS is able to provide a one-in-all-solution to decentralized file sharing. We've seen great services already developing on top of the IPFS fabric. The best is yet to come.

Decentralized Money - Bitcoin

The next thing we can do to push Web Decntralization towards its natural next phase is much much simpler. Investing in truly decentralized money.

Bitcoin, by virtue of how it works, is not just a digital currency - it's the foundational open source network needed to decentralize economic activity both on the Web and real-world trade. This is because it has six primary features that differentiate it from the private networks used by governments and traditional financial institutions:

1. It's permissionless; Anyone in the world can connect to the network. With resources like computing power and software users can participate in the validation of transactions.
2. It's decentralized; Through cryptographic breakthroughs, Bitcoin nodes are programmed to hold and independently update the database in the network.
3. It's trustless; A central party isn't required to ensure transcations are valid.
4. It's transparent; The network is a record of transactions between blockchain addresses. Anyone inspecting the network sees every transaction and its hash value.
5. It's censorship resistant; A central party cannot invalidate a user's transactions or reverse changes. Also as there are nodes throughout the world it is virtually impossible for the entire network to be taken over by a single party.
6. It's programmable; Bitcoin consists of individual behaviour specifications called protocols. The implementation of specific protocols essentially makes it a distributed, peer-to-peer and secured information database programmable to business logic and interoperable financial services.

The entrepreneurial benefits of decentralized money are only just now becoming more apparent to millions of internet users world wide. With decentralized finance:

• anyone with an internet connection and a smartphone could access financial services.
• costly intermediaries are scrapped. remittance fees are as low as 3%
• users have full custody of their wealth and can transact securely without validation
• with cryptograhic key management, wallets are secured using private keys for loss prevention

Source: Token Economy

I could go on because of countless other ways users have continued to benefit from decentralized curriencies. They represent an evolving view of how information can change the world and the web. From the way we spend money to our communication and even how we acquire services.

Decentralized Data Ledgers - BlockChain

A distributed ledger, as described (briefly) earlier, is a database that is spread across several nodes or computing devices. Each node replicates and saves an identical copy of the ledger. Each participant node of the network updates itself independently.

Distributed ledger technologies drastically reduces the cost of trust. The architectures and structures of distributed ledgers can help us mitigate our dependence on banks, governments, lawyers, notaries and regulatory compliance officers.

We've already seen use cases for decentralized data ledgers applied in industries like banking and insurance. R3CEV tests blockchain applications for banking and aims to create a blockchain standard. In their own words, it was born out of a common frustration with multiple generations of disparate legacy financial technology platforms that struggle to interoperate, causing inefficiencies, risk and spiraling costs. On the other hand Everledger is using distributed public ledger technology for tracking provenance in a way that’s more robust and accessible than a paper trail.

How BlockChain networks work

With decentralized ledgers, no one party like a bank controls its content, that is, which transactions get posted (the credits and debits), which modifications are made etc as such, blockchain engineers write a series of functions to mediate transactions. Member nodes in a blockchain network use a consensus protocol to agree on ledger content, cryptographic hashes and digital signatures to ensure the integrity of transactions.

Consensus ensures that the shared ledgers are exact copies, and lowers the risk of fraudulent transactions. Cryptographic hashes, such as the SHA256 computational algorithm, ensure that any alteration to transaction input results in a different hash value being computed. Digital signatures ensure that transactions originated from senders (signed with private keys) and not imposters.

The result of this programming is transactions that cannot be altered or reversed. This is commonmly referred to network immutability because it requires the approval of all network participating nodes to agree on data alterations or transaction reversals.

Enterprise Blockchain Utilization

Since it is my hope that the web will transform into Web3.0 in the next few years, I've outlined how enterprises, can create new or utilize existing blockchain networks as a strategy for differentiation and specialization in a free market environment.

For a blockchain network to function as highlighted above it requires four critical features. Each organisation implementing blockchain technology must consider these characters:

1. Consensus Algorithm - This is the core of every blockchain architecture. It's responsible for trustless networks. Nodes might not trust each other, but they can trust the algorithms that run at the core of it.
2. Permissionless Ledgers - Data kept in a perpetual state of forward momentum because of hashing power confirms new transactions that are recorded in every participating node.
3. Key Management - This ensures tamper-proof address & wallet security, authentication and integrity of user protection. Popular cryptographic hash functions used include SHA256, Scrypt, ethash, x16 and more.
4. Smart Contracts (Chaincode) - These are self-executing contracts converted to computer code, stored, replicated on the system and supervised by the participating nodes. This would also result in ledger feedback such as transferring money and receiving the product or service.

   

Enterprises that meet key industry requirements such as performance, verified identifies, and trustless transactions will benefit the most from Enterprise Blockchain Utilization.

Substantial Bottlenecks & Web3.0 Evolution Theory

For Web 3.0 to commercialize and become a great investment several things have to happen. Decentralized systems, networks and protocols need to close the gap between current Web 3.0 projects status and operationally efficient.

Certain features of permissionless blockchain have backfired on some networks in the past. Here are some of the disadvantages that us developers of permissionless blockchains might need to look at, it will help in overcoming the adoption bottlenecks.

1. Consensus mechanism- a permissionless blockchain like Bitcoin works on the principle of Proof-of-Work where the millions worth of hashing power is required for node participation. This requires the consumption of a lot of resources, thus, it’s a costly affair.
2. Anonymity BadRep- Identities of the trading parties remains anonymous in most permissionless blockchains. Some critices of Web Decentralization argue that this anonymity feature results in blockchain use rising in illicit activities. Its on us Web 3.0 enthusiasts to bring attention to the millions of transactions happening daily done by ordinary citizens around the world.

These drawbacks of the permissionless blockchain system make it a questionable affair for many companies. They believe that it is not suitable for them to make permissionless blockchain a platform for offering enterprise solutions.

Summary

There is a lot to digest in this article. It ended up going way beyond the post I initially intended to write. To attempt to summarise my outlook on Web3.0:

1. Web Centralization comes at a huge cost to users;
2. Commercializing Web 3.0 will increase speed of adoption;
3. IPFS is leading the way to the permanent web;
4. Bitcoin is the epitome of decentralized & distributed finance
5. Enterprise Blockchain Utilization will be a multiple industry standard.

Conclusion

Thanks to cryptographic security, decentralized consensus and DLT, blockchain technologies can profoundly change the way we organize our economic, social, political, and scientific activities. So let's do it Lets' Decentralize The Web