The Dfinity Foundation launched in 2021 a decentralized “crowd computing” protocol named “Internet Computer“, originally aimed at disrupting the monopolies held by giants Amazon, Google and Microsoft in the cloud computing market, by enabling small independent data centers to operate node clusters. Developers wishing to deploy a dApp on the_ Internet Computer_ must “pay” for the computational bandwidth of these nodes on a usage basis, through a dedicated utility token called CYCLES, convertible from the network’s native cryptocurrency, the ICP. CYCLES are pegged to the XDR to guarantee cost stability.

The potential of smart contracts, made possible for the first time on the Ethereum network since 2015, is here augmented by the decentralized computing power of the Internet Computer. The latter, by virtue of its distribution across hundreds of independent data centers worldwide, offers guarantees of data durability and operational stability.

Between 2020 and 2021, we actively participated in the deployment of dozens of Internet Computer nodes in data centers in Switzerland and Europe, and also contributed to the development of governance principles for the NNS (Network Nervous System).