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Decentralized Applications

In this article, you will learn decentralized applications (dApps) work and how users can interact with them.

Build dApps on IOTA Smart Contracts​

Decentralized applications (dApps) are computer applications that run on a decentralized computing system, like IOTA Smart Contracts.

IOTA Smart Contracts enable you to use your preferred programming language, set a fee model for users, incentives for validators, and committee structure.

There are some exciting aspects of dApps:

  • No downtime: dApps are based on a peer-to-peer system which ensures the dApps will continue to work even if individual computers, or parts of the network, go offline.
  • Censorship-resistant: As there is no single point of failure, and it is based on the Tangle, it is impossible to take over the Network.
  • Open-source: This brings even more trust to dApps. As the source code is publicly available, it can be verified and improved by many developers.

Architecture​

Decentralized applications consist of one or multiple Smart Contracts and a User Interface. The user interface is usually a Website, which interacts with the Smart Contracts.

Interacting With Smart Contracts​

There are two ways to interact with IOTA Smart Contracts:

  • On-ledger: Requests to the smart contract are transactions on the Tangle.
  • Off-ledger: The requests are sent using an API call to a Wasp node.

You can configure your Wasp node's API URL, or use the public Wasp REST API.

Examples​

There are several different example applications deployed on the public test-net chain.

Fair Roulette​

Fair Roulette

The Fair roulette example is a simple betting game in which players can bet on a number within a certain range.

More examples for Wasm Smart Contracts written in Rust and Go (TinyGo) can be found in the Wasp code repository.