Supporting protocols
Various supporting protocols are available to assist the complete decentralized ecosystem. This includes the Whisper and Swarm protocols. In addition to the contracts layer, which is the core blockchain layer, there are additional layers that need to be decentralized to achieve a complete decentralized ecosystem. This includes decentralized storage and decentralized messaging.
Whisper, being developed for Ethereum, is a decentralized messaging protocol, whereas Swarm is a decentralized storage protocol. Both of these technologies provide the basis for a fully decentralized web and are described in the following sections.
Whisper
Whisper provides decentralized peer-to-peer messaging capabilities to the Ethereum network. In essence, Whisper is a communication protocol that DApps use to communicate with each other. The data and routing of messages are encrypted within Whisper communications. Whisper makes use of the DEVp2p wire protocol for exchanging messages between...