Today, we are excited to announce Elph.

Our mission is simple: we want to make crypto easy to use.

We see Elph as a new portal for decentralized apps that brings together a token-curated app store, decentralized identity, and secure digital asset storage — allowing you to easily find and use these blockchain-based apps.

Using decentralized apps should feel no different than any other app, and the “crypto” aspects should be an implementation detail.

This is where Elph comes in.

Our first product is a simple, intuitive, and secure desktop app that lets you easily browse and interact with decentralized applications (dApps). In order to give you the best experience possible, we have re-imagined the discovery mechanism for these dApps through our token curated dApp store.

And we’re just getting started!

So what exactly are dApps? What’s the big deal?

“DApp” stands for decentralized app, which is an application that runs without a sole centralized operator. DApps typically run on blockchain technology, with most dApps running on the Ethereum blockchain.

DApps communicate directly with you, using special blockchain-specific protocols, as opposed to having a centralized server handling the communication. This makes it possible for you to truly own all your data — whether that’s your personal data, content you’ve posted, purchases you’ve made, or money in your wallet — without having to worry about a central operator take ownership of it.

The case for decentralization

You might ask, why is decentralization so important? Vitalik Buterin, the visionary behind Ethereum, describes the meaning of decentralization on a more philosophical level: he argues that decentralization, when implemented properly, achieves fault tolerance, attack resistance, and collusion resistance.

What decentralization means for you is that it is possible for dApps to be censorship resistant, free from the influence of any one central body, and available for everyone in the world with an internet connection, regardless of business or political jurisdictions!

There are over 3,000 dApps that are available for use, with more coming out every day. You can now trade assets, truly own and manage your digital identity, store your files on a decentralized cloud, play games online, own collectibles, find freelance gigs, secure a loan, communicate freely and privately without worrying about censorship, get a credit score, create and get paid for content, and lots more.

Needless to say, dApps are at the cusp of becoming truly mainstream and have just started to show the same exponential growth that we saw with websites during the early days of the internet in 1994.

This is just the beginning!

Elph — The simple, secure portal for dApps

Brian Armstrong, co-founder and CEO of Coinbase, describes in his secret master plan the need for a better experience for consumers to “dramatically lower the hurdle” for new dApps in the way web browsers did for the early internet. (Hint… this is exactly where we come in!)

We at Elph are working hard to making it simple for you to find and use dApps without having to think about the underlying technical details.

Elph, backed by Coinbase Ventures, is the catalyst that is required to truly grow the ecosystem and make it accessible to the general public.

To that end, our first product is a simple, intuitive, and secure desktop app where you can easily:

Discover new dApps — Elph features a dApp store, similar to the iOS app store, where you can filter by categories, browse dApp lists, or search for keywords to explore relevant dApps. We’ve put in an incredible amount of thought into this by making it decentralized and token-curated (more details to be revealed in a subsequent blog post). Browse and interact with dApps — Elph lets you use dApps directly, without needing any plugins or third-party extensions. Store your digital assets — Elph comes with a secure wallet which lets you store your digital assets securely. By having an in-built wallet, you can seamlessly use your digital assets on dApps with just one click.

We imagine Elph to be be the one portal where you can find and use your favorite dApps. And the best part: you can download our app today!

The Future

We have put up with untrustworthy centralized entities for far too long. It’s time to embrace the decentralized internet.

The good news is that centralized applications are already in the process of being displaced by more efficient, decentralized, and open systems. Blockchain-based dApps are leading this movement and have enabled common applications to act as provable, correct, and trustable governing bodies. We’re unbelievably excited about this space and are eager to help solve the complexity around ensuring dApps reach their full potential.

Stay tuned for more blogs from the Elph team or sign up on our website to get the latest updates!