There are now over 3500 dApps in existence with over 138.12k daily dApp users and counting. Many are now betting on the fact that decentralized apps will one day be adopted so widely as to entirely replace traditional applications.
Blockchain apps though, come with their own unique set of challenges. For many, the unbelievably high gas fees and complexity of building dApps hosted on Ethereum prove to be inhibitive. dApps are characterized by their resilience, their flexibility, and distributed nature. However, getting them off the ground is not that simple.
For every one successful dApp that makes it past year one, there are over 40 others that simply crash and burn before they can see the light of day. And for a large percentage of those that do see the light, they simply cannot gain traction, whether that be because of integration issues, technical issues, or marketing challenges in reaching a wide enough audience. The dApps that do succeed are those that solve real-world problems, rather than those that try to invent new problems to solve.
Ethereum in a race against time
Meanwhile, for Ethereum, there are new contenders to the throne. As more protocols are built to counter the challenges Ethereum is facing, Ethereum is in a rush to regain the traction it once saw, as the sole protocol for dApps and DeFi projects. Ethereum are busy working on fixing the issues associated with their network, as news is now regularly published of users being charged hundreds of dollars for single transactions, and sometimes even over a thousand dollars, which makes transacting in this arena untenable, and certainly unfeasible for many users.
The decentralized nature of the blockchain ensures that applications are more secure, more transparent for users while removing the human element from the middle of the transaction.
It will come as no surprise then that enterprise is using the blockchain for its own purposes, with stand-out winners in the areas of financial apps, gaming, and data management. Interest in the blockchain arena is hotting among global companies. A PWC survey shows that even as far back as 2018, where 600 executives were questioned, 84% were using the blockchain in some capacity.
The complexities of building on the blockchain
However, building on the blockchain is complex. This approach necessitates a level of expertise that is far removed from that required by centralized application developers. Celer Network is trying to redress this imbalance with their layer2.finance v0.1. This tackles both the problems of development complexity and prohibitive fees.
It works by allowing people to gain access to existing DeFi protocols at a snippet of the cost by acting like a DeFi Public Transportation System. Celer’s advanced layer-2 roll-up technology means that users share the cost of transactions between them.
(1/3) 🎉🚀@layer2finance v0.1 launches on @ethereum mainnet taking on two biggest challenges in DeFi: high cost and complexity of use.
You can now use @AaveAave @compoundfinance and @CurveFinance through https://t.co/LO8Diwuaxr completely for FREE. https://t.co/BHTNvPlsMh— CelerNetwork (@CelerNetwork) April 23, 2021
The Network is a layer-2 platform that allows for scaling, in a fast and secure way for both off-chain smart transactions. Developers need not have a huge amount of experience as they can easily and quickly build applications with a variety of off-chain techniques.
Projects like Celer’s layer2.finance v0.1 can help to bring blockchain apps to the masses and open up the DeFi and dApp arena to a much wider audience, while making the entire process of building dApps easier, faster, and much more tantalizingly cost-effective than they are now.