Chapter 16. Decentralized Applications

Decentralized Applications (DApps) are applications that run across a decentralized network and are not owned or controlled by a centralized authority. They differ from distributed applications primarily in terms of ownership. A distributed application may run on thousands of computers, but those computers and the management of the software running on them are controlled by a central authority—Amazon, Microsoft, and so on. A decentralized application runs on what is typically a peer-to-peer network and is designed in such a way that no one person or organization can control the functioning of the application. A decentralized application does not require a blockchain. There were multiple decentralized applications before blockchain: BitTorrent, Tor, and Mastodon are all decentralized applications that exist without the use of a blockchain.

In this chapter, we are going to cover the following:

• The major features of a decentralized application
• The largest...