Internet Computer (ICP)

Internet Computer (ICP) is a blockchain-based network built by the DFINITY Foundation, a Swiss nonprofit founded by Dominic Williams in 2016, with the network launching publicly in May 2021. It is designed to extend the public internet so it can host backend software directly, offering a decentralized alternative to traditional cloud providers such as AWS and Google Cloud rather than relying on them to run applications and store data.

The network’s core building block is the canister, a smart contract that bundles code and state and runs across subnets of independently operated node machines around the world. Internet Computer uses Chain Key Cryptography to enable tamper-resistant execution, seamless protocol upgrades, and direct interoperability with external chains like Bitcoin and Ethereum without conventional bridges. Network governance is handled by the Network Nervous System, a decentralized autonomous organization that determines how subnets are configured and verifies that instructions issued to node machines are authentic.

The ICP token underpins this system in several ways: it can be staked in governance (“neuron”) accounts to vote on network proposals and earn rewards, it is converted into “cycles” to pay for computation and storage under a reverse-gas model where developers rather than end users cover resource costs, and it rewards node operators for contributing infrastructure. Tokens spent on fees, compute, and proposals are burned, giving the supply a deflationary component tied to network usage.