Stanford’s “Designing Decentralized Applications on Blockchain” Program Creates 16 ETH DApps with No ICO

Ambitious Students at Stanford Create 16 Ethereum-Based DApps, and Didn’t Need an ICO To Do It

Nearly every crypto platform ushers themselves into the industry with a substantial ICO to sell security tokens. However, students from Stanford University decided to challenge that typical setup, developing their own DApps without any need to unleash an ICO.

Since last years, traditional financial endeavors and tech companies have aggressively pushed the use of ICO sales to generate profits. Some companies use this method to get their company off the ground, but they allow users to purchase tokens at the lowest rate before the value rises. Most developers find ICOs to be an easy method of raising funds, though investors have to confirm that they have no value to prevent them from being listed as securities and violating the SEC’s rules.

When there are no actual working products, any process in developing the project can earn millions of dollars in days with the use of an ICO. The fast progress can lead to disagreements between founding members, prolonging the amount of time wasted before launching the blockchain networks.

In the last week, the CS 359B program “Designing Decentralized Applications on Blockchain” from Stanford put students to the test. They were assigned the project of developing 16 applications with the use of blockchain that would follow Ethereum protocol, and they came through.

The applications had to improve the chances of profit for peer-to-peer digital asset trading. Students that entered this program had access to the description of the class, which said,

“Alongside lectures, there will be a quarter-long project where students design, implement and evaluate a novel distributed application on a modern blockchain, such as the ones of the Ethereum or NEO cryptocurrencies.”

In the various applications, the students included the use of Web Workflow (a customized marketplace), Marlin (a decentralized network for content delivery), and ImageTrust (a platform for software assets.” The various developments were showcased in springtime of 2018, and all of them required the use of blockchain and to apply decentralization programming. This assignment is fairly different from the setup of an ICO, which usually uses buzzwords and advertisements to get the attention of users.

With such a different approach to sell tokens on their platforms, Ethereum has been optimistic and impressed by the projects that these students have developed with blockchain. By showing the potential that blockchain has, and using it to help decentralize platforms, the technology is still working to be classified as efficient.

However, since the students also integrated Ethereum’s technology, they’ve been able to process transactions quickly with little lag time. Highlighting this transparency and maneuverability could be what the crypto world needs to be more accepted by other countries and financial institutions.