Internet Computer (ICP) is created by DFINITY and their foundation, which has been founded in 2016 by Dominic Williams. The DFINITY Foundation is a none-profit scientific organization based in Zurich, Switzerland, with research centers in Palo Alto, San Francisco, and Zurich, as well as teams in Japan, Germany, England and across the United States. DFINITY is funded by 12 investors and has raised a total of $166.9M in funding over 7 rounds. Village Global and Aspect Ventures are the most recent investors.
DFINITY’s mission is to be committed to building advanced experimental technologies to improve the public internet based on four pillars:
1. Ending the captive customer trap;
2. Powering systems that are secure by default;
3. Fixing debilitating IT complexity, costs and delays;
4. Powering ‘open internet services’ and ending big tech monopolies.
Thus, building, promoting, and maintaining Internet Computer (ICP) and by doing so, improving the world.
In 2018 DFINITY held an airdrop for the utility token of Internet Computer called ICP. ICP, which is also the ticker when looking for the rate price, stands for Internet Computer Protocol. Over 50,000 participants entered the airdrop and all received their share of ICP. DFINITY launched the alpha main-net of Internet Computer on December 18, 2020. The release to public domain was successfully launched on May 10 2021. It was the final step towards decentralization. Not much later major crypto exchanges as Binance, Coinbase, OKEx and Huobi listed the ICP crypto on their exchange for trading. With all the success, the value of one ICP started at € 380.-, then plummeted to € 25.- within a month. The current maximum supply of ICP is set on 470,958,263.
Internet Computer (ICP) is the world’s first blockchain that runs at web speed with unbounded capacity connecting billions of people, including developers and entrepreneurs with a public compute platform wherein it is possible to create a revolutionary new way to build websites, enterprise IT systems and internet services within an open environment.
The public software development platform is created by independent data centers combining computing power using an advanced decentralized protocol called ICP. It is integrated with Internet standards such as DNS (Domain Name System), and can server user experiences directly to web browsers and smartphones. Developers can work their magic by installing their code directly on Internet Computer’s public internet and dispense with server computers and commercial cloud services. But, Internet Computer is more than that. It also seeks to address serious long-standing problems that trouble IT, including system security and to provide a means to reverse and undo the ever increasing Big Tech monopolization of internet services, user relationships and data, and restore the internet to its permissionless, innovative and creative roots.
For example, Internet Computer hosts its native software within an unstoppable tamper-proof environment, making it possible to create systems that don’t depend on firewalls, backup systems and failover for their security. The used features incl. an interoperable framework between different systems, enabling internet software systems to be completely self contained and address today’s security challenges while dramatically reducing the complexity and cost of IT.
Buy, sell and trade Internet Computer (ICP) and its EUR pairs at Coinbase, Coinmerce and Bitladon. The provider with the best euro (€) price to buy and to sell Internet Computer (ICP) is shown below in the orange button.
Internet Computer and its advanced decentralized protocol ICP run with independent data centers around the world to combine the power of individual computers into an unstoppable seamless universe where internet native software is hosted and run with the same security guarantees as smart contracts.
The ICP utility token is the primary mechanism that allows the broader internet community to participate in the governance of Internet Computer’s network. ICP can also be converted into cycles, which are then used to run websites and applications as well as power computations on Internet Computer via computational units that include both program and state (canisters).
Summarized, the crypto ICP comes in to play as it has three prominent roles:
1. Network governance: Users that participate in the governance will be rewarded with ICP;
2. Production of cycles for Compute: ICP can be converted into cycles where it is used as transaction fee to access the network. Cycles are burned after used;
3. Rewarding users: ICP is used as rewards to incentivize users to participate in the network such as securing the network.
Cycles are the computational resources, or more known as ‘gas’ like with Ethereum, which is needed to execute actions on the blockchain network.
Neurons allow users to stake their ICP utility tokens for voting power on governance proposals and can be made to follow each other in various ways such that they vote automatically, representing a form of liquid democracy. Users earn rewards for voting on those proposals and are also able to unstake their ICP and convert them into cycles to power computation.
The ICP protocol is run by Network Nervous System (NNS) and is the autonomous software that governs the Internet Computer and manages everything from economics to network structure. The Network Nervous System (NNS) combines nodes from independent data centers to create subnets, which are used to host canisters. An evolution of smart contracts. The NNS continues to create subnets based on the capacity demands of hosting canisters and the ability to connect to other subnets and allowing Internet Computer to scale indefinitely.
Anyone who is looking for better ways to build software from entrepreneurs, developers or enterprises. Internet Computer offers interested an unprecedented, unfolding opportunity. As Internet Computer is expanding the functionalities it shall accelerate the public internet from a global network to also becoming a public compute platform.
The documents describes an external view of Internet Computer, i.e. the low-level interfaces it provides to application developers and users, and what will happen when they use these interfaces. Read more in their whitepaper found in the link below. Read more about DFINITY and Internet Computer.
