What are Decentralized Applications?

Since the beginning of internet, all internet-based applications that have been developed have been based on client-server architecture, where there is a centralized server that forms the backend of the application and controls the complete application. These applications often end up with issues such as having a single point of failure, failure to prevent net censorship, lack of transparency, users not trusting their data, activity and identity privacy, and so on. This centralized architecture even made it impossible to build certain kinds of applications. For example, you cannot build a digital currency using this architecture. Due to these issues, a new kind of architecture emerged called Decentralized Applications (DApps). In this chapter, we will learn about DApps.

In this chapter, we'll cover the following topics:

• What are DApps?
• What is the difference between decentralized, centralized, and distributed applications?
• What is a blockchain?
• What is the difference between public and permissioned DApps?
• Examples of some of the popular consortium DApps, and how they work
• What are the various popular platforms on which to build enterprise DApps?