The rapid development of the cryptocurrency market and blockchain has led to the emergence of a new decentralized software market, which has been called decentralized applications (DApps). The main difference between such applications and centralized applications is the storage of information in a distributed database based on the blockchain; the system is not controlled by a single center. All information in such applications is accessible to all participants and can’t be deleted or modified.

Today there are three main types of DApps:

Financial applications — are tools for managing financial assets, including fiat and cryptocurrency;

Partially financial — they have the functionality to work with finances, but their main purpose has a different direction;

Non-financial applications — their functions are not connected with finance.

Of course, such applications have many advantages over centralized applications. The main advantages include:

Resistance to censorship — a decentralized application or its individual components can’t be destroyed or changed by the decision of any persons;

Speed — components of decentralized applications can be simultaneously work from many sources, which significantly increases their speed for an individual user;

Privacy — information is stored in the form of encrypted copies, while all participants in the system can see it, but only the owner of the individual who has the key can manage each individual file;

Maximum power with minimum of resources — the entire network of decentralized applications is essentially a single global supercomputer that is used to service DApp.

Security — in order to disable a decentralized application, you must simultaneously attack all system participants, this is almost impossible.

Examples of decentralized applications

IDEX

Today it’s one of the most popular decentralized applications dApps. This is a decentralized exchange where you can exchange peer-to-peer ERC-20 tokens.

In contrast to the centralized exchanges trading in which users trust the control of their cryptoactive assets to administrators, Idex allows you to use public Ethereum smart contracts for trading.

Official website: https://idex.market/

Augur

This dApp is partly of a financial type. It works on the basis of Ethereum smart contracts and is a decentralized network for financial forecasts. Augur users have the ability to predict trends and build forecasts about real events, both from the world of finance and from other areas. In addition, the forecasts for the platforms become a kind of analogue of the “shares” that other users can sell or buy.

Official website: http://www.augur.net/

Golem

This platform is a real decentralized open source supercomputer. This platform allows you to rent and lease computing power. Anyone can donate the unused power of their computer and get profit for this in Golem tokens. And users who need additional processing power can also rent it using Golem tokens. Initially, this app was created for use in GCI-rendering to speed up the processing of resource-intensive movie scenes or animations with 3D graphics. It’s also planned to use the Golem application for machine learning, analytics and other tasks.

Official website: https://golem.network/

Savemeluggage

This application was launched by the developers of REGA, which created a new type of insurance — crowdsurance, which is a kind of decentralized insurance on the blockchain, where smart contracts manage all processes and finances.

The Savemyluggage is designed to protect baggage during flight. The blockchain provides users with an affordable and profitable decentralized system which has several advantages over standard baggage insurance: works worldwide/protection period up to 180 days/time to search for lost baggage — up to 10 days.

This dApp is built on the Ethereum blockchain. The participant receives an NFT Token (ERC721SmartToken) which is unique to each and is essentially a tokenized policy or insurance contract. In the event of loss of baggage, the decision on reimbursement is made on the basis of a smart contract, as well as an expert vote on the REGA Crowdsurance platform.

Official website: https://savemyluggage.io

Basic Attention Token

This token is used on the Brave platform, as well as in a unique browser with the same name. The system is a new type of advertising platform on the blockchain within which you can access various services using the BAT token. In essence, this is a decentralized ad exchange based on a token and a browser. Participants in this ecosystem are advertisers, consumers, and publishers. The advertiser can buy BAT tokens to use them for advertising, and the consumer can view this advertisement at his own request and receive a reward for it in the same tokens. The publisher, in turn, receives a reward if its content is attractive to the consumer and the advertiser.

Official website: https://basicattentiontoken.org