Nearly 2 years has passed since I discovered ICP, and at that point the number of nodes was somewhere around 1120.
Now after a brief search it appears the number has increased to only 1137, with 80% of nodes under centralized control. That is not what I call planetary growth.
So…is ICP EVER going to expand its boundaries and phase out Web 2.0 to become the dominant internet platform it should be, or is the entire project a pipe dream?
Does the reverse gas model need to change or some other entirely different system need implementation for ICP to be universally adopted?
Investors pushed back on the rate of node expansion due to inflation, but it can probably be ramped up again as needed, e.g. if Caffeine has a successful release.
You are tracking the wrong metrics. The node count should only increase when the existing network can no longer support the required computation or storage. Currently, there are 1,346 nodes, but only 571 are in use, as the current demand does not necessitate more.
The key metrics to monitor are canister state, count, and cycle burn rate, all of which are rising. New nodes should only be added once the existing network reaches at least 60%-80% utilization.
ICP solves numerous problems. What I think is most important is that it allows you to see and verify the code that is running on remote servers. You can’t do that without ICP (unless you’re only interested in trivial applications). ICP is not a pipe dream
Next time you see a company promise that they do one thing (but in the end it turns out they’re actually doing another), consider the value proposition of ICP.
The world is increasingly moving in a direction that necessitates something like ICP, with a zeitgeist that increasingly demands it, attempting to hold companies to account. We’re very early…
AI is also developing at a rapid pace and this will only increase the need for trustless verifiability (and on-chain agents).
Thanks for the clarification of the metrics I should be paying more attention to!
So, if ICP were to become the default internet system for billions of people worldwide as they simultaneously chose to migrate over all their sites and traffic from web 2.0, what sort of numbers (canister state, count, and cycle burn rate) are we talking about to make a massive migration to ICP successful and everlasting?
The IC isn’t ready for an overnight transition like that. This will take decades. But the IC already provides utility. It will only be increasing (on average) over time as adoption steadily ramps up, builders keep on building, and users keep on using.
If they were to switch simultaneously, ICP would struggle to onboard that many nodes at once.
While this scenario is unlikely, a sudden surge in new dApps adopted by a massive number of users would require a more streamlined node onboarding process.
Currently, ICP has significant infrastructure reserves, allowing usage to scale 100x, but a 1000x increase would likely be a challenge.
ICP cannot scale, that was proven by Yral. To put it more accurately, it can accommodate many small dApps but not huge ones. So, if you imagine an ecosystem made of a million dApps, each with very few users, ICP is great for that. But if you think of dApps with a massive user base, that’s not going to happen on ICP because individual subnets are severely limited and working across multiple subnets creates speed and security issues. It’s a basic failing in the architecture of the system.
I kind of agree with that assertion. My reasoning is that a dapp of any reasonably big size, one with millions of users, will likely choose to launch its own chain. We don’t have that flexibility on the IC yet.
Ok, that is highly significant and the exact opposite of what I understood ICP to represent.
My idea was to host my dApp on ICP, and if it magically got accepted by (countless people-wishful thinking) individuals, only then would I have a platform to build upon for success.
But now, if ICP is by default not able to scale to meet such high demand of a dApp, where does one host their dApp if Web 2.0 is also not an option?
Let’s see, I think we can all agree that when it comes to fully on-chain dApps, OpenChat stands out as one of the most feature-rich and sophisticated dApps built on ICP.
We could ask @hpeebles, one of the OpenChat devs, what changes would be needed to the current ICP protocol (setting aside upcoming improvements) for OC.APP to onboard 100M or even 500M users, assuming enough subnets are added.
Assuming all necessary changes were made to OC.app (if needed), would it be possible for ICP to handle it?
You’ll likely need tens of thousands of subnets since, as far as I know, OC uses one canister per user. That translates to hundreds of thousands of high-end nodes—an enormous challenge for decentralization. The costs would run into billions of dollars, and you’d also need to print the ICP required to reward those nodes, making this idea feel highly unrealistic.
I’m not so sure about that. Let’s wait for a reply from the OpenChat team or Dfinity.
Just a side note, I recently met up with a friend who worked on infra at DoorDash back in 2020. He told me their AWS bill was a massive $15 million a month.
On ICP, node providers get paid in fixed fiat terms, around 1,500 XDR per month (USA: 1,294 XDR, EU: 1,542 XDR, South Africa: 2,748 XDR). That makes the infrastructure way more affordable, especially when you consider the value of tamper-proof hosting.
We could do some rough napkin math based on what we know. Currently, there’s a soft cap of 120K canisters per subnet.
With 37 subnets (571 nodes out of 1,382, and 20 more subnets coming soon), that means in the current setup (assuming all are dApp subnets, they are not), oc.app could accommodate 4.4 million users if they maxed out canisters on all subnets.
Many people don’t realize that ICP has a major advantage when it comes to sustainability.
Unlike other blockchains, where developers spend large sums on external infrastructure like RPC and hosting providers, ICP keeps everything within its network. This means revenue stays in the ecosystem instead of leaking out, making it more cost-efficient and self-sustaining.
