/Sources/raw/twitter/1930742273312162117.md

Tweet 1930742273312162117 - Dom's Brain

Tweet 1930742273312162117 author: dominic w created at: 2025 06 05T21:43:24Z url: https://x.com/dominic w/status/1930742273312162117 reply to: none quote: no...

Tweet 1930742273312162117

Original Text

Caffeine demo @ Crypto Valley Conference had the audience entranced & clapping as it unfolded :) đŸ’Ș

But, there was something else that I experienced, and I’ll talk about this subject for the last time, since I feel our project is moving on.

The laptop I was going to use to demo had a problem with its internet, so while it was sorted out, I engaged in a back and forth with the audience.

To level-set in preparation for the demo, and make sure the audience understood what they were about to see, I asked the audience about their understanding of the phase "onchain" and what it meant for an app or service to built "on" a blockchain.

I asked the audience to put their hands up for one of two choices (one of which would be true, the other false):

Choice 1: "if an app/service is said to be 'built on Blockchain XYZ’, and is said to be running ‘onchain,’ this means that XYZ is functioning as a decentralized cloud, and that's where the app/service is actually hosted and runs”.

Choice 2: "the phrase means the app/service is built on one of Big Tech’s cloud services or similar, where the user experience and backend data and computation lives under the full control of the developers and the cloud service, without blockchain resilience and security, and is termed 'onchain' because it has an associated token on blockchain XYZ.”

More than 90% of the audience raised their hands for Choice 1 (but, of course, Choice 2 is what the prevailing Web3 vernacular means).

I shouldn't have been surprised by this, since past research performed by DFINITY found an even higher proportion of retail crypto investors, institutional crypto investors, crypto journalists, mainstream journalists, etc, believe that when someone says that an app or service is built on Blockchain XYZ, and is onchain, that it is running from XYZ, which is playing the role of decentralized cloud.

But I thought the truth would have percolated more by now. This was something I was fighting 3-4 years ago. But the massive misunderstanding obviously remains fully intact.

Back in the day, I tried to help people understand on social media by posting the theoretical cost of storing a single phone photo on different blockchains, and comparing the cost to storing a photo on the Internet Computer. Everyone knows what a phone photo is, so this was meant to provide a way to grok the difference.

The costs on other blockchains ranged from the millions to tens of thousands of dollars owing to limitations in traditional blockchain design, to fractions of a cent on the Internet Computer (which is why NFT media typically lives offchain, and why blockchain NFTs just store a link to it)

Of course, my purpose was partly to help people understand what had been achieved with the Internet Computer, the level R&D that went into creating it, and deep innovation it embodies (and why DFINITY, a not-for-profit with a defined mission, had spent hundreds of millions on R&D, rather than directing that money into marketing).

But my purpose wasn’t just to draw attention to the Internet Computer: I also personally prefer a world grounded in reality, and for the facts to be out there. This, after all, is pretty fundamental to what Web3 is.

My phone photo reveals didn’t go down well at all.

I was widely attacked and derided as lying about the Internet Computer, and accused of spreading disinformation about other blockchains, and as being an industry downer. Eventually I gave up and took the view that people would eventually get to the truth without me making enemies – after all, the difference between perception and reality was so vast, I felt it surely couldn’t persist

But the problem has never gone away, in reality.

For example, less than a year ago, I had a difficult interview with the Managing Editor of Crypto at a huge mainstream publication, which experience I shall share with you.

I spent the first 15 minutes explaining the Internet Computer vision, how much we had invested into reinventing blockchain so that it could function as a revolutionary new form of decentralized cloud and end-to-end stack that hosts online apps and services that are tamperproof (no need for traditional cybersecurity) and unstoppable (resilience guaranteed), while continuing to support blockchain specialities such as tokenization and autonomous logic, adding additional functionalities such as trustless multi-chain etc etc

The Internet Computer addresses seminal challenges in tech, and in society generally. The project has employed world-famous computer scientists. Who could fail to be interested in that, but —

Soon, the crypto editor was looking irritated, and in fact, plain angry. I paused. He shrugged his shoulders, and said (verbatim): "so what's new!?.. isn't that what Solana and Ethereum are
 decentralized clouds.”

I wasn’t going to be able to disabuse him of his strongly-held beliefs, and persuade him that these these networks are designed to store and process tokens, and DeFi, and cannot provide cloud functionality where online apps and services can be hosted. The interview was over in 20 minutes.

The editor thought what I was saying was completely preposterous, and obvious lies, and that I was a charlatan taking him for a fool.

This is the bizarre alternate reality that DFINITY has been living for four years since launching of the Internet Computer in 2021 – after 5/6 years of hard R&D at scale, with another 4 following since.

At launch, the credibility of the network suffered from extraordinary attacks by shady people in our industry to deflect from its capabilities and protect the status quo, in ways anyone can read about on CryptoLeaks, but what’s really bizarre, is that despite the scale and power of those 2021 attacks, in the end the unique capabilities of the Internet Computer have become masked within the industry not by those reputational attacks and historical market manipulation, but by the widespread baseless misunderstanding that other blockchains provide exactly the same (or better) decentralized cloud functionalities, an idea completely detached from reality.

While the Internet Computer can host a social network, these other blockchains can't even store one phone photo in practice. They are token-processing networks.

The situation derives not only from disinformation and misleading vernacular, but from the lack of direct experience people have with networks.

The average man can't tell where an app or service is running. If someone claims an app or service is running on their favorite blockchain, then who's to say it isn't!?!?

The industry has fostered this profitable mass delusion to such a point that the social proof appears overwhelming to people, and it is accepted fact. This, of course, is what happens in cults. And, just like in cults, when someone demurs, and dares to challenge cherished delusions, they are attacked and vilified.

Back in the day, when I helped pioneer this industry, as one of its technical leaders, I was driven by an overwhelming passion to use my technical skills to unlock utility for humanity by developing the most advanced decentralized technology possible. I’m a very technical person, and as a pioneering theoretician in the field, I was in love with the technology and what could be achieved (and absolutely still am).

At DFINITY, we aim to do big things, and our work addresses seminal challenges in tech, and to no small extent, in society more broadly. The technology was and is revolutionary.

In practice, successful engagement in serious science and engineering pursuits is easier if you are someone who is almost religiously interested in truth, logic and facts – even if you are overly optimistic about timeli