Loom Network, a startup from the TechStars incubator, has just launched a new development platform for DApps (distributed apps). When the company reached out to me, it described the platform as “new tech that allows developers to easily build highly scalable blockchain applications, with a focus on games and social — think World of Warcraft or Twitter on the blockchain.”
My ears pricked up when I heard “Twitter on the blockchain,” since that’s the example I’ve been using to explain why we need decentralized apps. What’s also intriguing about Loom Network is that it may encourage the development of apps that aren’t just exchanges or wallets. Put another way: if the blockchain ecosystem is to ever reach the level of app development that Web 2.0 (the Web as platform) attained, it needs development platforms that enable apps with real world utility to be built.
Here’s how this works. The Loom Network platform was built using something called DAppChains, a term coined by the company. This means that each DApp on the platform will run on its own, dedicated sidechain. A DApp will only use the main Ethereum blockchain for data that must be secured; all other parts of the app are run off-chain.
In an earlier blog post, the company defined a DAppChain is “an Application Specific Sidechain, that runs parallel to a mainchain, Ethereum in this case.”
So what will these sidechains do? In a separate post, Loom explained more:
Individual sidechains can follow different sets of rules from the mainchain, which means they can optimize for applications that require extremely high speeds or heavy computation, while still relying on the mainchain for issues requiring the highest levels of security.
One of the main benefits of these sidechains, according to Loom, is that they will enable scalable DApps. This gets around the problem of popular apps, like Cryptokitties, clogging up the main Ethereum blockchain.
One downside for now, as CoinDesk pointed out, is that sidechains are essentially centralized and under Loom Network’s control. But this may change as the platform evolves. [Update: in a Reddit thread, co-founder James Duffy clarified that a sidechain is under the control of the DApp owner and not Loom Network; also he said it’s not necessarily centralized, as it depends on “what tradeoff they want to make between decentralization and scalability.”]
As a proof case of the new system, Loom Networks also launched today a Q&A website called DelegateCall. It’s like a blockchain-based version of Stack Overflow, the Q&A site for developers.
DelegateCall will use reputation (a.k.a. karma) points, just like Stack Overflow. But unlike the Web 2.0 site, DelegateCall users will be able to cash in their karma points for tokens. Here’s how it was described:
…on DelegateCall these karma points can be redeemed for a tradable ERC-20 “DelegateCall token” on Ethereum mainnet, allowing users to earn rewards proportional to their contributions to the site.
This is a key difference between the previous Web apps era and this new, blockchain-powered era: there are potentially real economic benefits to incentive users. That said, it’s unknown yet how valuable the DelegateCall tokens will be. That’s a risk users will have to weigh up.
The goal with DelegateCall isn’t just to explain what Loom Network is via the Q&A format (although that’s a cunning way to do it). It’s also to showcase how developers can use the Loom Network SDK. Ultimately, the company says, “the end goal for Loom Network is to have hundreds, thousands of these DApps running in production.”
In summary, I like the sound of Loom Network and I hope it incentivizes blockchain developers to start building new forms of apps. I’m particularly interested in social apps, like a decentralized Twitter. But it’ll also be interesting to track what new forms of apps are built on this platform.
Part of the magic of a new Web era is wondering what a native blockchain app will look like. Just as Twitter and Facebook were innovations that were ideally suited to the Web 2.0 platform, and in Twitter’s case were nearly unthinkable before then, there will be breakthrough DApps in the blockchain era. Apps that we’ve never seen before and didn’t think were possible before blockchain. Maybe, just maybe, one of the big winners of this new era will get launched on Loom Network.