Blockchains are decentralized, peer-to-peer networks. That’s a lot to take in at first, so let’s start with concepts that are familiar to us. Let’s look at how Web2 applications function on the backend. Also, this is just the beginning of Web3 tutorials for product designers. Stay tuned for future Web3 Design Courses where we discuss emerging dApps that will disrupt the internet as we know it today.
In Web2, computers, smartphones, and tablets talk to servers, and data stores, that are hosted on centralized servers owned by companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google. These devices, also known as “clients”, use internet protocols like HTTP and TCP/IP to communicate with the centralized servers, and access the web apps. This is what the Web2 internet looks like, and what people have been accustomed to for the past 20 years.
Web3 changes this paradigm. Instead of applications hosted on centralized servers, applications in Web3 are distributed across nodes on a peer-to-peer network. Nodes connect to one another, and no single node “owns” the network, or gets special privileges on the network. In other words, unlike Web2, no single person or company controls access to the network, and has the unilateral right to update the database. Instead, nodes in Web3 must come to consensus with one another, and agree on how to update the blockchain database based on a common rule set. If a node decides to not follow the rule set then it will be unable to participate in the network in the first place.
In general, nodes are made up of clients and validators. As we’ve seen in previous sections, Web3 users run wallet software (e.g. MetaMask) on their devices, and send transactions from their wallet in order to transfer crypto, or use dApps. These transactions are sent to, and received by, the validators. Validators are the nodes that do all the work to keep the blockchain running. They all have a local copy of the blockchain, and update the blockchain, by creating new blocks, with the incoming transactions from clients. Remember, no single validator has control over the blockchain, the decision-making is distributed across many validators.
Validators are simply computers running Ethereum node software. In fact, if you wanted to, you could download Ethereum node software to your personal computer, and join the network as a validator. To put it simply, validators do all the work necessary to run the Ethereum blockchain. If you look up real-time stats of Ethereum validators you’ll see that there are thousands of validators on the network, globally distributed across the world. Decentralization results in special properties for the blockchain, and the dApps running on it: resilience and fault-tolerance. Let’s say that the entire UX power grid shut down, and all US nodes went offline. The network would lose 37% of its nodes, but the remaining nodes would continue uninterrupted. This means that the blockchain data (i.e. the history of all transactions) would persist, and decentralized services would continue running.
Now that we know more about what validators are, you may wonder what they actually do to run the network. Essentially, validators are responsible for maintaining the blockchain database locally on their computer. This ensures that the database is distributed and not owned by any single entity. Also, they are responsible for updating the blockchain. In other words, validators create new blocks, adding it to the tip of the current blockchain. Validators propagate new blocks to the rest of the network, so that other validators can check the block, and add it to their local blockchain. Don’t get hung up on the details – this probably won’t make a lot of sense at this point. Just understand that validators dedicate their time and resources to maintain the Ethereum network. A reasonable next question might be: why do validators endure these costs to continue running the network?
The incentive is clear, and this is the genius of blockchain networks. Blockchains reward the nodes that run, secure, and support the network with the blockchain’s native coin. On Ethereum, it’s ETH. On Bitcoin, it’s BTC. And so on. As many of you will know, these coins have real monetary value, so there’s financial incentive to not only run the network, but abide by the network’s rule set to ensure maximum return. This token incentive mechanism just described is at the heart of blockchain networks, and decentralized applications. It will be a theme you will continue to see throughout the Web3 ecosystem. We’ll talk more about tokens in later Web3 Design Courses.
In summary, blockchains are made up of a network of distributed nodes that communicate directly with one another. Validators do the work to maintain, and update the blockchain, and they do this to earn rewards paid in that blockchain’s native coin. Next, we’re going more in-depth on how the blockchain gets updated, from a client sending a transaction, to a validator including it in a block, to that block getting propagated out to, and accepted by, the rest of validators on the network.
If you enjoy videos over reading when it comes to online learning then checkout the course on YouTube. This is part 7 of 9 in the Web3 Design Course 2022.
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