Swiss not-for-profit organization The DFINITY Foundation, a major contributor to the Internet Computer (ICP) blockchain, has released its Protocol Ecosystem Report 2023, highlighting that community members have committed more than 6.5 million ICP tokens — nearly $80 million — via the innovative Service Nervous System (SNS) framework to help decentralize the ecosystem’s top protocols.
Unique to the ICP, the SNS model allows protocols to become fully decentralized by turning into Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). On a high level, an SNS DAO governs a decentralized application (dapp), deciding on the code of that dapp and how it is evolved.
On the Internet Computer this can also include the dapp’s data and frontend. Each SNS community can also choose its own unique tokenomics and governance rules by parameters that can be set for each SNS DAO. This way developers can hand over the control of their protocols to their communities, allowing users to freely propose and vote on all changes made to a dapp.
To initiate this process of decentralization, community members need to commit ICP tokens to projects’ SNS proposals via so-called decentralization swaps. This way users committed over 6.5M ICP — or nearly $80M — to dapps in the ICP ecosystem in 2023, enabling these projects to become fully community-governed.
Among these dApps are decentralized messenger OpenChat, Neopets’ spiritual successor Dragginz, blockchain-native search engine Kinic, “Web3 TikTok” Hot ot Not, the first ICP memecoin Ghost, decentralized “verification as a service” platform Modclub, fully on-chain gaming-focused BOOM DAO, innovative social app Catalyze, and others.
Notably, the report also showed tremendous growth in gaming activity, free from the high gas fees and limited scalability of traditional platforms. For example, Dragginz, launched by the creators of Neopets, has already grown to a community-driven market cap of over $8 million by offering an immersive world where every aspect of the gameplay is built directly on the blockchain.
“The success of the SNS framework has been a big win for decentralized governance worldwide, and through its innovative tech stack and multiple network integrations, the ICP is unlocking access to a seamless, trustless multichain future for Web3,” noted Lomesh Dutta, Vice President of Growth at DFINITY.
Additionally, DFINITY distributed $6.25 million in ecosystem grants to 239 projects spanning 41 countries in 2023. This Developer Grants Program aims to catalyze the growth of the Internet Computer ecosystem and make the ecosystem accessible and approachable to more developers around the world by providing support to promising teams.
Among the grantees were protocols such as new multi-chain DeFi solution IC Lighthouse, self-custodial identity provider and key management protocol NFID, data processing layer Chainsight, decentralized data oracle provider Orally, decentralized multi-chain and multi-owner wallet B3Pay, groundbreaking hybrid spot orderbook decentralized exchange Helix Markets, retail Bitcoin mining-focused platform Loka Mining, and many others.
The IC network usage also increased by 121% over the past year broadly across most subnets, suggesting a constant ecosystem-wide growth.
A full copy of the Internet Computer’s State of the Network report is available here:
