In a engaging conversation at Paris Blockchain Week, Pierre Samaties, chief business officer of the Dfinity Foundation, shares the bold vision behind the Internet Computer Protocol (ICP)..
From groundbreaking AI projects called the “self-flighting Internet,” to protocol-level integration with Bitcoin, Ethereum and soon Solana, Dfinity pushes the boundaries of what is possible with Web3. Samaties offers exclusive insight into how users can build live, on-chain apps that are merely natural language prompts.
Internet Computer Protocol Summary
The Dfinity Foundation is a major contributor to the Internet Computer Protocol (ICP). I take care of everything in business, commercial and product related DFINITY.
The Internet computer community is growing significantly as it is the only true world computer infrastructure that can actually build a full-end-to-end world computer stack. This is very appealing to many developers. Reading last year’s Electric Capital Report reveals that ICP is the second fastest growing developer ecosystem just behind Solana.
Self-flighting Internet
We are working on what founder and chief scientist Dominique Williams created the “self-writing internet.” This allows anyone on this planet to use an AI interface, like the ChatGPT interface. This article will encourage you to build and deploy applications in natural language.
Not only does the AI return the code, but it also uses the deployed application to revert the URL live on the internet computer for 1-2 minutes. And we’re obviously working to make this a chat speed. Not only that, but you can actually update your application through the prompt. It’s a very big thing as this is a different use case, and ultimately it’s another use case after defi.
Web3 infrastructure is better than Web2 infrastructure, but you don’t need to tell anyone about it. People will realize this is a great thing. You can create your own app. If I’m an individual, business, or startup, I can start in natural language. This is a very big thing.
Applications on Internet computers are accessed from a web browser, so users will not notice the difference between Web2 and Web3. For you, it just feels like a regular web application, and I think it should actually be the real goal of Web3. I think the problem with Web3 we have today is that it always has its own about how to access it and some UI issues. The key to recruitment is to make it really seamless and as seamless as possible. And this is the product.
About ICP integration into key blockchain
Another important feature of an Internet computer is that there is protocol-level integration between Bitcoin and Ethereum, and protocol-level integration with Solana in a few weeks. With Bitcoin, anyone building on an internet computer can interact, read and write on Bitcoin. That’s very interesting for Bitcoin builders. Bitcoin is a single purpose blockchain, and is best for what it does, but it is extremely difficult to build logic on it.
Given that there is this chain key Bitcoin integration, many builders (there are over 40 different projects from the Bitcoin community) are using ICP Tech to build true Bitcoin Defi and Bitcoin Web3 applications. Main chains can be used most fluidly. It has the best trust assumptions for Web3 and Defi applications.
There is a canister. This is the term for smart contracts on Twitter. A full stack canister that allows you to read and write Bitcoin. This means you can build logic on everything you want to do with ICPs, smart contracts, and stiffer applications, but you’ll soon interact with Bitcoin.
Another important factor is that it is encrypted on Bitcoin’s mainnet and has a digital twin of Bitcoin that lives on an internet computer. This is called CKBTC and allows only 10 sets of transaction fees in addition to Bitcoin transactions with 1 second finality. This allows projects like Odin.fun that aims to create a centralized exchange sensation in distributed infrastructure using Bitcoin.
Each time you convert Mainnet Bitcoin to CK Bitcoin, you will automatically lock Bitcoin on your mainnet. Also, there is no ragpal or a central bridge that can be hacked or exploited. This makes CKBTC the safest way to have Bitcoin outside the mainnet.
ICP’s scalable infrastructure deflation model
ICP is perhaps one of the most ambitious projects in the entire Web3 industry. This is why Dfinity has one of the biggest R&D teams on Web3, spending most of its funds on R&D. But what our team actually created is really amazing. This is an infrastructure that is already infinitely scalable because it scales horizontally.
Mainnet has been live since 2021 and has already run over 500 applications on internet computers, including the entire social media platform. There is a WhatsApp Telegram clone called OpenChat, and already has around 20,000 users. Scalability is not an issue. This system is designed for scalability. Think about it. If you have the promise to create a true world computer, make a very intelligent choice about scalability.
As I mentioned, it is horizontal scalability. There is no gas model, but there is an inverse gas model. Now we are all feeling the pain of a second generation blockchain with this gas model. Internet computers need to be built from scratch with a first principles approach.
This is what we call the reverse gas model. As a user, I am not obligated to pay the gas fee as I believe it will kill adoption. Instead, there is a model that is roughly the same as the ones found in Web2 today. If you host your application on Amazon, you pay to Amazon in your cloud computing space. This is exactly the same logic on an internet computer.
For developers, they pay for the computing cycle, they pay for these computing cycles with an ICP, and this ICP is burned. This means that the more computing is occurring on internet computers, the more deflationary the toconomies.
ICP deflation model
Although we cannot comment on the price, the network has become DERLationary due to significant network activity for several projects that have been deployed over the past six months. This will lead you to believe that you may reach a sustainable, deflationary method before you first predict.
But again, I know the time. Also, self-executing Internet will be an important catalyst, as all the applications that can be deployed are clearly run on ICPs. You will need to pay for the computing cycle. This is probably the cheapest thing in the industry. It also adds to some kind of deflationary element.
Development with ICP
Self-Writing Unless you’re out of Internet, you can’t use AI for prototyping. But when it occurs, relatively quickly, you can prototype it. If you are a project and already find your architecture and ideas, you can contact our dedicated growth team led by my colleague Romesh.
The Growth Team will support everything that could potentially support me with onboarding internet computers, from project reviews to some grants.
Expectations for Paris Blockchain Week
For me, the real benefit of these meetings is having face-to-face discussions. As always, there are many online meetings and more. But I think the value of this is really having a lot of people, especially all European leaders in the industry here.
So we can have a good argument and get things done. Still, we are in a way an industry that is unreliable and we want to achieve something unreliable, but face-to-face discussions are still very important to building trust. That’s what I’m trying to achieve here.
