BlogWhat is a DApp?

Decentralized applications or DApps are essentially the same as software applications or Apps you use every day. Unlike centralized applications often used today, for example, Facebook, a DApp has no central authority and control of its user's data. It achieves this decentralized autonomy by using various smart contracts running on a blockchain network. Smart contracts control and run the DApps on the backend while the end-user has a graphical user interface to interact with the smart contracts. As far as a user experience point-of-view, a DApp will look the same as a regular App downloaded from the Apple or Google App store.

There are which utilize a suite of DApps to run and maintain their community for example the largest DAO in existence today is on the ethereum blockchain. These DAO's pay their users in the form of a cryptocurrency token or stable coin as a return on investment to the user who lent their native tokens like ETH for Ethereum and ADA for Cardano, in return to use their DApps and services. The tokens are able to be traded or swapped for other cryptocurrencies or even back to fiat in some cases. Users can also vote on improvements to the smart contracts via these tokens which adds a pseudo governance to the management of the overall DApp. Currently, the most extensive use case for DApps exists on the Ethereum blockchain in the space.

The Cardano blockchain is close to rolling out their own smart contract functionality after the Goguen era in the Fall of 2021. Here is a list of popular use cases for DApps currently:

However, Cardano has plans for extending the use cases for smart contracts and decentralized applications even further. Currently, the Cardano ecosystem already has a plethora of uses cases being developed for the network, ranging from NFT platforms like to which is attempting to bring the internet to people around the world to identity management systems for countries and governments like Ethiopia. The amount of functionality and applications that will come with the introduction of smart contracts to the Cardano blockchain will be meteoric in impact. The community of developers and partnerships will grow even faster than what we are witnessing today. Cardano's methodical roll out of its smart contracts will help ensure a safer, more sustainable, and inclusive decentralized application ecosystem.

Take a look here at the Cardano ecosystem in its current state:

For more information on DApps watch this short video: