The Internet Computer blockchain incorporates a radical rethink of blockchain design, powered by innovations in cryptography. It provides the first “World Computer” blockchain that can be used to build almost any online system or service, including demanding web social media, without need for traditional IT such as cloud computing services.
Guest: Dominic Williams, Founder & Chief Scientist of DFINITY
DFINITY website ➜
00:00 Intro
00:52 ICP Updates
03:46 Cloud compute capacity
05:32 ICP leads DePin category
07:33 What type of blockchain is ICP?
10:37 ICP Launches GDPR
13:27 Onboarding
17:17 How do you attract devs?
22:39 Is this the solution for government security?
28:45 Staking & business model
32:46 Outro
#Crypto #Blockchain #Ethereum
~Internet Computer Blockchain $ICP 🌎 DFINITY Interview~
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Let's talk about some blockchains today And get into a little bit more of a deep Dive on specific projects and you guys Have been asking for different projects So we thought today will be one of those Special times and we'll get uh into it We're going to talk about ICP I don't Think you want to miss it my name is Paul bar welcome back in the tech paath Joining me today is Dominic Williams who Is the founder and chief scientist over At definity welcome back Hey Paul thanks for having me yeah so It's been two years since we had you Back on the show uh we've had an Uprising in our uh YouTube channel uh And our social all asking for ICP give Us an update give us an update so I said All right well we we'll reach out to Dominic and find out what's up so anyway Dominic let's go right into it tell us Uh in the past couple of years first of All what have been some of the big Advancements with ICP you can Share well um you know the network Transitioned into production mode in uh May 2021 after sort of six plus years of Um R&D um R&D of course con has Continued since I think uh the internet Computer network incorporates more than A thousand person years of R&D so it's a Huge Endeavor and uh the Network's never gone Down so it's worked incredibly well
There are now hundreds of um projects Running on the internet computer and It's really proven this um world Computer Paradigm that um one day Everything can run from from a Blockchain and uh today we have you know Things like social networks running on The internet computer some of them you Know very highly interactive like like Open chat and what distinguishes uh the Paradigm is that with traditional Blockchains um you only really host uh You know token s nfts not usually uh the Nft content just links to the nft Content and little bits of defi Logic on On the blockchain itself and uh when you Interact with a web three game or Something like that it's it's generally Running on you know a big Tech cloud Like Amazon web services the difference With the internet computer is that Everything runs from uh the blockchain Itself so that's an absolutely Gamechanging advance and uh as a Consequence you know it processes very Large numbers of of transactions and you Can see there it's processing about 230 Eth equivalent transactions a second Currently so um you know It's by the only the only um you know Public network uh in in the space that Has these kind of capabilities and um We're just pleased to see it develop um New things that are coming out include
Uh Incredible multi-chain capabilities so People have been using the internet Computer as a kind of layer to for Bitcoin for example um creating a a Bitcoin twin called chanky Bitcoin which You can transfer in one second at Extremely low cost um an increasing Focus on AI so people are already Running uh AI models of smart contracts And developments this year will allow Them to run those AI models um even more Efficiently as smart contracts and Something else coming uh this year is Called Utopia um and it's it allows Enterprises who aren't ready um to build On a public network yet to essentially Create their own compatible private Internet Computers so there a couple of things Here I think for some people they may Not necessarily be fully aware of just Icp's broad uh approach to how Blockchain really kind of reinvents the Opportunity around Cloud compute and What the internet is of today most People know hey I've got my Amazon Servers over here I know that cloud is Going to be a big part of AI and most Likely blockchain will be integrated That in the future where does um Internet computer and definity fall in The way of because I I was looking back On your homepage there and I think you
Had yeah here you your $5 gig per year So this is smart contract memory what's The capacity of of cloud compute for ICP Is that something you mentioned AI is That something that could also integrate Into ICP as a as a a plan going Forward a absolutely so um you know if You run an AI model um such as something Like stability AI that generates images Or a large language model that can Answer questions if you run that um on a Traditional cloud service of course it's Fragile and and it's not hack proof and We believe that um as AI develops and And people um start to depend on it more And more it's going to be absolutely Essential that it can't be hacked and It's um Unstoppable um I I incredibly Resilient and the solution we see is That AI should run smart contracts on on The internet computer okay so that well That would solve a lot of the challenges And I think some of the issues that AI Brings to you know modern day business Business because this is a concern I Think in general of what that's going to Look like I was looking at a tweet right Here and I wanted to bring up and we'll Bring up dpen in general but you guys Are leading the category right now in Deepin decentralized physical Infrastructure networks for those of you Uh and there's a lot of of really good Projects in deepin I think deepin is
Really one of the core use cases and Utility of where blockchain truly is Going in the future when you look at Deepen as a strategy for what you're Trying to to do what new things and and What potential opportunities are there For Definity so de's an interesting category I think um it's important um not to Imagine the internet computer as a Network of servers or something like That that are being rented out though so It's true that the internet computer Runs on Sovereign hardware and in that I Think it's really the second blockchain To do do so the first of course is is Bitcoin you know Bitcoin is created by Miners who have this dedicated Hardware Hashing hardware and what's interesting Is actually that both Bitcoin and the Internet computer have autological names Like they're kind of descriptive names Rather than brand Brands um file coins The same and uh you know that contrasts Uh quite strongly with traditional proof Of State blockchains uh that run Predominantly you know on big Tech's Cloud um right the internet computer is Really a fundamental Um play to extend the capabilities of The public Internet so I mean really if you think About it it's kind of the core of what Uh Tim burner Lee was trying to do when
This thing was built in the beginning as Opposed to the centralized problem that We're now facing around uh these massive Server Farms such as whether it's U you Know Amazon AWS Etc so I would agree With you is that that really kind of Creates a unique proposition going for But again it's back to the security Issues and things like that that fall Into this a couple other things when you Look at ICP as a blockchain and you Think about the other blockchains that Are out there that you know we'll we'll Say an example salana equals payments um Avalanche I would say is kind of gaming You know they're they're moving into That maybe um maybe tokenized Securities And and real world assets where would ICP Fall well you know there's a sort of I Think blockchain is very much about Narratives and you know people use Different um verticals as their Narrative um the internet computer is Really about compute which is a much More General thing compute underpins Everything we believe in blockchain Singularity and blockchain Singularity Means that everything all systems and Services will run from the blockchain Itself so to to to contrast with with a Chain like Avalanche um yeah they talk About gaming a lot but you know really Those games aren't built on the
Blockchain that they're running off sure Amazon Amazon web services and then you Know at Key moments in those games um You'll be bumped out to perform a Transaction in a wallet like metam Masque and you know exchange some tokens From for an nft or something like that But the game isn't um on the blockchain At all it's really just a sort of Figment of language that we've ended up Using in the blockchain industry we say That if the tokens on the Block chain Then the web3 service whether it's a Social network or a game is on is on the Blockchain um the internet computer um Ecosystem uses that word much more Literally so if someone says like open Chat which is a sort of social network Chat messaging service uh runs on the Internet computer or is on on the Internet computer they actually mean it You know the whole thing runs end to end On on the internet computer and there Are huge advantages um that that can Derive from from this Paradigm so for Example open chat uh runs under the Control of a special kind of Dow called A service nervous system and uh all Updates that are made to open chat go Through that service nervous system Dow So the developers propose updates to the Service nervous system and then you know It's a community of like you know tens Of thousands that decide whether or not
Those updates should be pushed into the Running service and so that's really Realizing this web three dream where you Know users um are given true ownership So in a sense it's kind of like you know Converting uh internet services into Something like an nft that where there's Like communal Ownership yeah well I think you know the Last time you and I talked and I kind of Walked away I went back and watched that Interview and I kind of walked away at That time that this is an a huge Initiative so obviously you guys have Stuck around the initiative is still Underway and you look at the kind of the Shift that that's been happening in Tech In general I think there's been a lot of Pressure obviously from the EU uh as Well I wanted to jump to a press release You guys did this was an announcement of Uh the European subnet launched on ICP This is uh gdpr so this is um you know Kind of the Privacy uh situation that's Happening in the in the EU uh around Decentralize app so uh this is a big Deal developers now on subnet have Access to a suite of tools that can be Leveraged to release daps in the EU that Protect P personal and fin this is going To be a big situation in the EU and in General I think across all of blockchain But more importantly across these Governments that are probably starting
To deal with blockchain for the first Time how big of a deal is this for ICP well I I think the regulation is Coming to crypto whether we like it or Not or not yeah yeah and you know uh Uh blockchains have to you know adopt Practices and functionality that will Enable people building on them to be Successful and uh with respect to the Internet computer um you know it's the Internet computer is like a single Seamless environment um behind the Scenes it's created by uh subnet Blockchains that that are able whose Capacity can be sort of combined into One um but um and these subnet Blockchains are composed from node Machines that are combined by the the Networks governance system and of course The nodes are chosen to be independent In the sense that they're owned and Operated by different uh node providers And they're installed in different data Centers and different geographies and And different jurisdictions and the Network maximizes the decentralization Of these sort of hidden subnets that way But um you know all things being equal If you upload a canister smart contract To the internet computer um that you Know is going to end up being replicated All over the world uh right and uh if You're in Europe um you know that can Cause problems with this gdpr regulation
Which says that you know the personal Data of uh European users has to stay Within the EU so the idea is that um you It'll extend beyond just this one case That you know when you upload a canister Smart contract to the internet computer You can tag it with gdpr and when you do That it'll only be um it'll essentially Be uploaded to a subnet blockchain uh That only has node machines within the EU and so it's only you know the data is Only replicated within the EU and that Will enable um people building for Example you know an Enterprise System um On the internet computer to be Compliant okay so obviously we're going To see devs continue to build within This you know this ecosystem what is the The attractive nature of one devs coming On board how hard is it you know a lot Of blockchains now are courting new Project devs everything from gaming to Payments you name it uh some of them Have really opened up you know kind of In the sense of you know very Communicative how are you guys doing That how how is uh ICP really going About bringing in the best talent tent In the Industry well you know the internet Computer has always been a sort of Technology first project and um that's Reflected by the scale of the R&D Operation the contributes um technology
To it I think I mentioned is like Represents more than a thousand person Years of R R&D um so historically we've Been sort of Less business development Oriented but you know we have given out Uh definity foundation's given out um Some number of Grants to developers and Things like that and we make sure this Fantastic documentation and the tooling Is wonderful um that approach differs a Little bit to a lot of other major Blockchains which have raised massive Amounts of money and often you know will Invest even tens of millions of dollars In in people who are willing to build You know on those chains um and that's a Different approach it's more of a kind Of flywheel approach um and what we find Really interesting and encouraging is That if you look at the amount of money That's been uh spent across the Ecosystem to get people to build on the Internet computer um typically it's it's About you know per per per developer It's like two 200x less than these major Chains which you know invest a lot of Money to to to kind of encourage people To build that oftentimes by saying look We'll invest in your project and things Like that so right the internet Computers you know genuinely asort of Grassroots organic ecosystem and we Think that in the long run you know These big blockchains that um have
Sometimes uh had you know cash inflows Of billions of dollars into the Ecosystems you know may find it's Difficult to sustain in in the long run Because you know sometimes people have For example invested 20 $30 million into Games companies in order to get them to Build using their blockchain and um you Know typically it'll just be a game and The idea is that that there'll be an nft On the blockchain involved yeah um the Challenge with that is that you know Those those games companies you know Typically end up with quite a big burn Rate and at some point you know their Runway will expire and they're going to Need follow on rounds of investment and Things like that and um so you know We're very you know encouraged that the Internet computers ecosystem doesn't run On that kind of model and it's organic And yet you know if you look at the size Of the ecosystem the number of Developers um it's it's not that much Smaller than some of these like you know Inver coms leading chains that have had Billions of dollars um B multi-billion Dollar inflows into their ecosystems to And to get people building there well I Think you know the issue is narratives You if you look at the industry right Now it's much like any emerging tech Industry whether you look back all the Way back into the birth of the internet
Mobile social digital I mean you could You could look at any one of those major Advancements in the period in time in Which we saw early companies come to Market typically it's been like the Model you just mentioned which is lot of Money coming in Blue Sky on the outside And maybe something hits so my question Is when you look at the blockchain Because we're we're nearing a point of Reflection in blockchain we talk about It all the time here on this show is Retail uh business in general en now Wall Street all starting to embrace Blockchain maybe for the really the First real time we got real utility Coming at us you know if you look at What's happening with Wall Street most Likely JP Morgan tokenized Securities Real world assets companies like Nike Making real moves Visa just coming in so This is the first time I've seen it in Many many years of real companies doing Real things and to your point some of These chains are using this as a Narrative to push that chain forward so What keeps them in the way of devs Because the minute you get a big win Let's just take uh polygon and and Nike You know let's look at artifact you get A big win there all of a sudden polygon Is the The Golden Child what is going to Keep those da devs and daps from not Continuing that direction versus coming
Maybe over to something like what you Guys are doing on ICP well there's two there's two parts To answer firstly um you know we've all Got to ask you know how sustainable is This model where you know blockchains is You know sometimes spend um tens of Millions of dollars to get a customer I Think polygon um was reported as Spending 20 Million on a deal with Starbucks to to Host a kind of royalty nft yeah and I've Heard actually that the real cost is More like $50 Million um you know if you do that a few Times you've quickly got through a few Hundred million right um and so you know I'd question how sustainable that is and And that's why you know we we we like The fact that you know the internet Computer ecosystem um has this called Cost per acquisition if you like you Know if you look at the ecosystem as a Whole like it's um acquired developers At like 1/200th the cost and and that's Because of the strength of the Technology and we think that's more Sustainable the other part of the answer Is um you know we're sort of coming at a Much more fun coming at it from a much More fundamental angle um we we don't Think about individual narratives like This is the blockchain for nfts or this Is the blockchain for finance we see we
See blockchain much more generally as as A compute platform and and believe in Blockchain Singularity like all of Society's infrastructure really runs on Computers now and we want um worldwide Society to build its um critical and all All pretty much all this infrastructure Right it infrastructure on on blockchain Because uh for example this solves one Of the biggest problems of our time um Which is cyber security so cyber SEC is Uh you know becoming as bigger issue as War and climate change I think by the End of this year cyber crime generally Um is estimated to cost 10 trillion Dollar a year right so that's you know Com up from 40% of the GDP of the United States so the wonderful thing when you Build um systems or services on the Internet computer is that you don't need Cyber security so for example um I think I mentioned open chat it's a social Network it's a highly interactive chat Messaging service with lots of group Chats and things um that that uh service Actually has crypto inside of it right In the sense that people can use their Chat accounts as crypto wallets and send Crypto with chat mess in chat messages And yet that service um has run Successfully for two and a half years Now and it's not protected by a firewall It's not protected by anti malware I'm Shielding it from viruses and ransomware
Um it doesn't have a security team and Uh I think that speaks to what's Possible uh more Broadly within the world of computing Like why would anyone choose to build on Traditional it infrastructure that's Completely insecure and you have to try And protect it with firewalls and things Like that and of course it's also vastly More resilient it's never never had any Downtime so and and by the way it's it's It's developed by a pretty small team of Developers so uh you know working with This sort of serous smart contract code Can also be a hell of a lot more Productive so we see you know um Blockchain um as an alternative to the Traditional it stack um that's why it Wouldn't make any sense for the internet Computer to run on Amazon web services It runs on it on the S Hardware run by No providers uh we want people to build The systems and services to of Tomorrow on chain on the internet Computer and that's a very different Model there's no other technology in the World today that can and makes that Paradigm possible and of course um you Know you know we're talking about the The the foundational there in a sense of Of society because society's powered by Computerization so if you can update the Foundation Improve them and give them new
Capabilities um you can also uh you know Credle kinds of wonderful um advantages And benefits higher up the stack yeah I Think the the point that a lot of people Look at is you know if if IP is going to Be Successful with the future of where the Internet is going to go I look at it in The sense of what you're saying in terms Of cyber security the potential of Really kind of a sovereign internet so To speak uh why have we not seen more Nation states more more governments Really starting to look at this Particular technology as being the Solution as because this would Essentially insulate one of the biggest Problems we have in potentially cyber Warfare in the future to I'm I'm Surprised the CIA or or the mosad or you Name it is not at your doorstep right Now um all I can say is it's happening But you know governments aren't ready to Build on a public network yet so uh the Internet computer um isn't like other Blockchains in the sense that you can You know just download all its blocks I Mean the technology discards blocks Actually doesn't need them for its Security after a period of time and you Know they're just too many blocks and so The the smart contract you know the data Of canister smart contracts is uh Replicated across you know node machines
And different places run by no providers But you know in principle um those node Providers could go to their node Machines and sort of open them up and Start looking at the data and um Actually we've got some some things to Protect against that in in the public Network but you Know a lot of governments and Corporations aren't quite ready to to Gamble on the honesty of node providers Just yet so uh we we've we've got Another technology coming called Utopia Which effectively allows uh corporations And government governments NOS Militaries to um create their own uh Internet computers if you like um yeah Copias that are compatible with the Internet computer compatible with each Other but they control they then control The nodes that create these Utopias Themselves so they can very um you know Closely guard that that data and I can Tell you that there are a lot of Countries in the world right now that um Want to create Sovereign Cloud Infrastructure yeah right and the Beautiful thing about Utopias is that Utopia by the way is an acronym it Stands for Unstoppable tamperproof open Platform for independent autonomy and uh These clouds are fantastic because you Know on the one hand they're tamperproof And Unstoppable so you know the nodes
Can go down they keep running the nodes Can be hacked they keep running without A hitch um the systems and services you Built on them don't need you build on Them don't need protect with firewalls Um they're highly flexible so you can Add and remove nodes as you like the Open source you know the actual nodes Themselves are open source so you can be Absolutely sure there's no foreign uh Back doors or kill switches and you Develop with this wonderful you know Serverless smart contract code that Really improves your productivity and It's the only seress Cloud technology in The world today which is stateful so so Uh the the technology kind of makes the Data stick to the code of the smart Contracts in a something called Technical term as orthogonal persistence And it really not only reduces R&D costs Um and simplifies code but it also Allows you to build systems and services Without traditional platform software uh Like databases and and the world spends You know more than 900 billion dollars a Year on software licenses so you can Address that cost you can address your R&D and Personnel efficiency costs I Think we World spends about $ 1.8 Trillion doar a year on IT personnel um You obviously can reduce your cyber Security costs and most importantly um You can avoid the Colossal costs that
Come with cyber breaches um and you can Get the Peace of Mind of knowing that You're running a system and service on a Tamperproof platform you don't even need A file to protect it it can never be Infected with rans somewhere and stop Working so we are we are in fact talking To you know number of of countries Regarding Sovereign cloud and we've also Um but this is an emerging thing that You'll see I think through 2024 projects Once we see someone break out with Something like that that will it'll Start to set the tone I think for maybe The next era of of compute uh for sure And yeah it's just one more thing it's Going to be great for um developers uh Building on on the internet computer There are going to be these Network Effects where you know web 3 develop ER Who who maybe doesn't want to be so Entrepreneurial can go and work in the Enterprise space and an Enterprise Developer who fed up at the corporate World can go be an entrepreneur in the Web 3 space and not only that um you Know uh people who built like general Purpose Services uh you know on the Internet computer like web three Services they can actually turn them Into apps for the Enterprise space so For example I yeah I mentioned open chat Um you know uh governments will be able To um you know upload that to create
Like a private Slack you know like a sovereign private Slack on the utopus and then the Developers will be able to sell support Contracts um to to to those users so It's going to enable completely new uh Business models for web3 developers I Want to get into this last question uh Is really more around um you know how How does this make sense you know from a Financial standpoint monetization the Potential here in terms of uh staking All the aspects of the finance side of This Dominic for but by the way for all Of you guys listening in make sure smash The like button give us a little bit of Feedback on do you like these kinds of Videos when we do deep Dives with Founders and uh leads of some of these Blockchain projects we always love that Input but Dominic when you look at your Voting rewards this is your staking in The governance system right now uh these Are annualized rewards for those of you Looking at this on screen explain to me The I guess the business model of You know definity and and what internet Computer is trying to do how do you fund This right now what is the process with Eth we know it's gas fees but with ICP It's a different model explain that to Us right so um you know the the network Is created by these things called node Machines which is standardized Hardware
Run by no providers around the world There's no staking in a sense the Hardware itself is the stake but there's A govern a governance layer there's a There's a very very Soph at Dow called The network nervous system that's Integrated with the uh ICP internet Computer protocol and uh you know it's That that you know pulls new software up Dates onto the nodes to update the Protocol um forms new subnets and things Like that and to participate in the Governance system uh you need the ICP um Token and you stake it to create Something called a voting neuron and uh You can configure your a neuron if you Want to vote automatically by following Other Neurons and uh you know that's how the Network adapts and evolves people submit Proposals and they're either adopted or Rejected and what's unique about this Network is that when proposals are Adopted most of them are actually Executed completely automatically so There's no back door it's full Decentralization now um there's a um Reward schedule right in terms of the Maximum amount of ICP that can result from this governance Taking and uh it declines um from uh Launched to to about 5% a year and um You know I think I think at the moment Probably about I'm not sure you know
Maybe just a little less than half of The ICP in existence is State inside Their governance system about you know North of3 billion doar worth and there Are hundreds of thousands of people Participating I think so it's definitely The biggest Dow in in in the world today Um And you know in in terms of how the Network uh Economics work um computation Is powered by something called Cycles Which you know roughly equivalent to gas On on ethereum but they're kind of like A separate token and you create Cycles By um uh converting ICP tokens worth one Xdr or SDR standard drawing right is Like a a currency defined by the IMF Which is a derived from a basket of Curr Curren is and if you if you have ICP Worth um one xdr um you can convert that Into one trillion Cycles now uh internet Uses reverse gas so smart contracts pay For their own Computation and that means they're a bit Like electric cars you if you if you Have a Tesla you charge the Tesla up With electricity you can drive it as you Drive around the charge and the battery Goes down once it's run out of Electricity it stops running and you Have to charge it up to make it run Again um canister smart contracts are The same you have to charge them up with Cycles and as long as they've got Cycles
Um they they they can keep on running so You know computation Burns Cycles if They run out anybody can send them more Um and if they run out and no one Refills them with more Cycles they sort Of disappear of three months right um so As as the amount of computation on the Internet computer grows and it it's been Growing steadily uh since launch um so Does the demand uh for ICP grow because People need ICP to convert it into Cycles to to to power their code yeah Well it gives us a at least a little bit More of an insight to you know the uh The monetization side of this Dominic Williams it's been great having you on The show I'd love to dive in deep on on This so I learned a little bit more About ICP and what you guys are doing so Thanks for giving us an update today we Really appreciate it thank you po Appreciate it too you bet all right so You guys are as I said if you have a Project out there that you think hey we Should maybe get a Founder on the show Or maybe a Dev uh let us know just hit Us up over on Twitter you can catch our Twitter account which is pbtv Paul Baron TV or my personal account which is just Paul Baron onx you can find us out there It's very simple we'll catch you next Time right here on Tech paath Sh
