Internet Computer
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About Internet Computer

The Internet Computer (ICP) is a set of protocols that aims to offer a decentralized alternative to the current centralized Internet cloud providers. The protocol allows independent data centers worldwide to band together, with a plan to have the protocol running on millions of computers worldwide. The ICP token is used for governance, to reward network participants for good behavior, and to pay transaction fees.

ICP's global and distributed network of data centers can run all of the applications that are accessible via traditional Internet standards, such as DNS. The protocol operates via open standards and avoids conflicts of interest when a major cloud-computing provider hosts competing products with its own services. Today's Internet is highly centralized, with popular applications on the web often closed-source, proprietary, and hosted on a handful of data centers owned by big tech firms. A major concern is that centralized, corporate web-services providers have the ability to censor or deplatform applications.

The Internet Computer attempts to offer a fundamental alternative so that developers can build, host, and serve applications in a more decentralized way - allowing websites to be deployed directly onto the public internet. The protocol incentivizes open-source and transparent software development. One way to think of ICP is as a way of converting crypto into processing power - the network will establish a fee based on the amount of computing power required by a developer's project.

ICP's plan is to have the protocol running on millions of computers worldwide. The resulting network has some key advantages over the centralized alternatives, one of which is the avoidance of conflicts of interest. The protocol offers a fundamental alternative to the highly centralized nature of the internet today, allowing for more decentralized and transparent software development.

The ICP token is used for governance, rewards for good behavior, and payment of transaction fees. It is essentially a way of converting crypto into processing power, with a fee based on the computing power required by a developer's project.