Bluzelle Wants to Make DApps Decentralized and Prepares for Mainnet with $30K in Rewards

The D in dApp is meant to stand for decentralized, but the majority of dApps are anything but. Now, Bluzelle is on a mission to change that by incentivizing dApp developers to utilize distributed storage. To accelerate that transition, Bluzelle has posted $30,000 in rewards to spur the use of its final stress test before mainnet launch, with a chunk going directly to dApp developers.

Launched on April 9, the Swarm of Duty event gives developers a chance to get their hands dirty by playing around with BluzelleNet and creating applications. It will be the final stress test before the project’s mainnet launches. Validators are also encouraged to get involved, as are token-holders who can earn rewards for delegating validators. The goal is to demonstrate not only the ability of the Bluzelle network to handle capacity but to drive the move to distributed storage that is essential if dApps are to realize their value proposition.

Rebuilding the Web

The architects of web3 protocols see distributed systems as essential in making the internet censorship-resistant, not only in terms of preventing content removal but in provisioning global access. Decentralized storage will play a pivotal role in achieving this, but for adoption to occur, it needs to be as fast, reliable, and accessible as its centralized counterpart.

At present, most Ethereum nodes operate on cloud servers provisioned by giants such as AWS. If the leading cloud providers were to censor the Ethereum network, more than half of its nodes would disappear overnight. This problem also affects the dApps that operate on networks such as Ethereum, EOS, and TRON, and is compounded when these applications are relying on centralized storage for user data, images, video, and other content.

Decentralized storage has proven a tough nut to crack, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars poured into it. Filecoin’s launch has been delayed by over a year, and is not set to go ahead until Q3 2020 now. The distributed storage network raised $257M back in 2017. Bluzelle, for its part, raised almost $20M in a public sale in January 2018. That investment is now starting to bear fruit with the release of its testnet and rewards program.

Staking Is Now the Only Chain in Town

While readying its final testnet, Bluzelle became the first database to update its consensus engine to use the Cosmos and Tendermint technology stack, designed to keep nodes in sync and deter malicious behavior. The full launch of Bluzelle, as Ethereum itself transitions to PoS, signals the direction where crypto networks are headed. The number of new Proof of Work chains has been in decline for some time, with decentralized name service Handshake one of the few examples to emerge in 2020. Like Bluzelle, it may play a part in making web3 technologies more widely available and easier to access.

While Proof of Work chains wind down, Proof of Stake has been ramping up. Improvements in the consensus mechanisms guiding PoS chains has helped fortify them against many of the theoretical attacks that have been postulated. With companies like Bluzelle, Filecoin, and RSK through RIF Storage bringing distributed storage to market, PoS chains may soon have another boast to make over PoW: greater decentralization. For dApp developers and users, that can only be a good thing.