Decentralized Networks, Their Value, and Why They Matter
By: Color Platform
Tags: Color Platform, Ethereum, Cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, Blockchain

When we think about the term ‘Decentralization’ outside of the blockchain space often what comes to mind are things like power structures, like governments for example, or other technological networks, such as the internet. With decentralization, especially in the world of technology, comes many benefits and challenges that are becoming ever increasingly on the radar of governments, businesses, and organizations around the world.

Consider for a moment the largest working example of a decentralized system, the internet. What makes the internet so valuable such that the world economy without it these days seems unfathomable, even though most of the companies and businesses that thrive on top of it weren’t even in business a generation ago? After all, when your average science fiction novel, written before the internet was ubiquitous, talks about the future, the concept of anything like ‘internet’ doesn’t even enter their radar. Surely the Ministry of Truth would have had quite the struggle stopping subversion if such a tool existed, but I digress.

The entire history of evolution of early computing, ARPANET and innovative figures like Tim Berners-Lee (creator of the modern web browser) might be out of the scope of this article, but it is easy to forget why the internet became so ubiquitous in the first place. Surely it wasn’t just all cat GIFs and Selfies in the beginning, was it? The reason it has become the world’s primary source for information exchange, media consumption and business transactions is because it is open to anyone to join. Secondly, in the beginning it was soon realized that shutting down these networks were nearly impossible to do in a practical sense, so businesses or organizations didn’t have to have the “if ‘internet’ goes out of business”, fears. Most people understand by now that the internet, being decentralized in its nature, has no central server, no central regulatory body or company, and no central point of failure.

Of course decentralized systems may have their weak points (I’m looking at you non-shark proof intercontinental ocean floor internet cabling), such as interoperability issues on all levels, different implementations, etc., but resiliency generally comes with decentralization. The problem of governance, on the other hand, becomes much more difficult since it is harder to identify bad actors and remove them in the distributed system. In the case of the internet, it is because of geographical constraints, and since it is a public network, its users don’t need a real identity in order to interact with it, making their actions harder to trace. Operations that may be banned in one country or blocked from a region simply move elsewhere, or the system participants can often simply find a way to circumvent these controls. Thousands of websites and services can be shutdown via their supporting companies and central endpoints, but shutting down the internet at this point is out of the question.

This resiliency in the distributed networks like the internet is nothing short of amazing, but what gives these networks value is not only everyone’s ability to connect to it freely, but to depend on its availability, and to have relative faith in the integrity of the information you are receiving (despite recent problems with this particular point). The more people able to participate in the information economy, and have the ability to build on top of it, the better for that network. We are more likely to discover and give potential to the future’s greatest minds with open distributed networks. The internet also has the power to allow otherwise disconnected people to participate in the information economy, in the same way, blockchains allow for otherwise disconnected people, to take part in it financially.

Blockchains share the internet’s decentralized characteristics such that it is often referred to as the internet of money. Here at Color Platform we see blockchains as much more than that. We may not know the exact future of Blockchains and all of their uses, in the same way the early architects of the early internet didn’t know they would give rise to companies like Google and Amazon, but we believe that enabling as many people to leverage these technologies as possible will have a network effect that will give the Colorchain Ecosystem a distinctive advantage.

The more people, from elementary school students, to retirees, that have the ability to build on top of a blockchain ecosystem, the more value it will generate for its users. Removing technical barriers of entry and abstracting away interoperability issues through standardization and machine learning has been and will continue to be a key focus for the Color Platform team. Recently we opened a bootcamp for our Color Engine technology, that showcased students of all ages with only little instruction can begin utilizing our platform to express their ideas and build their projects. Color Engine is and its designer tools are just one piece of our vision to bring the benefits of blockchain technology to a broader audience. We will be releasing a blog in the coming weeks that gives a breakdown of how Color Engine works, and why we believe it is so important, so stay tuned!

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