DAPPs Are Not The Future Of Blockchain. This 1 Thing Will Drive Innovation Instead

re anything with .com behind it was successful.

You know, pets.com, books.com, diapers.com.

Right now, blockchain is experiencing the same sensationalism.

People say we need to create a Facebook for blockchain, a Bumble for blockchain, a Medium for blockchain. It’s a familiar pattern.

That’s not the way innovation is going to work this time around.

There won’t be a million different DAPPs in place for every individual platform. Instead, platforms will integrate blockchain as a service.

Here’s why:

The Downfall Of DAPPs

DAPPs give you the ability to control and build the end-to-end architecture.

At Chronicled, our early consumer-facing DAPPs registered objects and luxury goods on blockchain, and they were elegantly designed.

But the new blockchain apps are trying to communicate with each other — and they’re not doing it effectively.

Take CryptoKitties. It’s a fairly simple game. But in order to play, a first-time crypto user must go to Coinbase, buy some Ether, transfer it to a MetaMask wallet, and put it into the game. There are multiple steps and validations just to play.

So, even in an effective app, the technology lacks the core infrastructure to communicate between existing systems. Those linkages and messaging protocols are essential if we want to have a truly connected network.

The Ease Of Integrations

While there’s an increase of DAPPs that mirror or replicate our existing world, it’s not where the future lies.

It’s in integrations.

Take Medium. The world doesn’t want to move from one publishing platform to another, decentralized or not. And it’s not a wise decision for companies to build a complete consumer-facing blockchain DAPP and move people over to that system.

It’s much more intuitive if existing platforms use a blockchain integration.

Rather than building out individual apps for every product, a developer platform hosts different integrations. Imagine a Medium-to-blockchain integration that registers, hashes, and time stamps posts on blockchain. It inserts unique tracking code and pays publishers for content. That’s the goal of integrations.

That platform would allow us to scale much faster.

Instead of building a completely new Medium for blockchain, the platform lets users register their posts on blockchain via an integration. Then, that integration can be replicated for other publishing platforms.

We don’t need a new blockchain-based publishing platform.

We need a way to connect existing publishing platforms to blockchain with new protocols and technologies.

Integrations As A Feature

When the average consumer talks about the crypto industry, they usually don’t mention blockchain.

Why? Because they associate cryptocurrencies with making money or buying things.

That’s why Medium wouldn’t market an integration as, “You can register your post on blockchain.” Frankly, no one cares. Users only care about being able to track and profit off their content.

It doesn’t matter to users what’s powering a decentralized publishing platform. It matters how easy it is to use and how effective it is.

And as businesses innovate, add features, and win larger market shares, it’s necessary to explain the benefits of blockchain in a way that users can understand — as a feature.

If we want to see mass adoption and see platforms powering things in an effective way, then it has to be a seamless process for users. We’re not there yet. But by focusing on integrations rather than DAPPs for individual use cases, we’ll get there much sooner.

Thanks for reading!