Flow is a decentralized blockchain platform that was designed to enable the creation and execution of scalable and high-performance smart contracts. It was developed by Dapper Labs, the company behind the popular cryptocurrency and digital collectible game CryptoKitties.
Flow, the technology that Meta has decided to use to create its NFTs in the Instagram and Facebook applications, is a high-speed blockchain project created by Dapper Labs. This company is the author of large NFT projects. Among them: CryptoKitties, NBA Top Shot, NFL All Day, and UFC Strike. Since its inception, Flow has been created to be a completely different blockchain from what is known and it really is.
Technically, the Flow blockchain is a set of nodes where each performs its own function. Each of these nodes is organized to perform different tasks at the same time. In this way, it seeks to maximize its resources and at the same time maintain a fast and efficient workflow. Thus, Flow is considered the first decentralized, asynchronous, and multitasking network in the blockchain world. The Flow network has been running since August 15, 2019.
What is Flow Blockchain: Chosen By Meta
To understand how deep the change that Flow brings to the blockchain world, we can see a rough example of how a blockchain works. In Bitcoin, for example, all the operations that are executed in the network are carried out sequentially and linearly. Going through the issuance of the operation, its arrival in the mempool, its processing by the miners, its inclusion in the block, and its subsequent verification and propagation throughout the network.
The process happens repetitively at all times and the Bitcoin blockchain is kept alive. However, it is a slow system, with scalability issues, which the Bitcoin team has wisely decided to solve with sidechains, such as the Lightning Network.
However, Flow chooses another solution. Instead of doing sequential and linear work, Flow is committed to dividing the network into different functions, which can work in an orchestrated way to ensure that its blockchain can scale significantly. The easiest way to understand this is to see Bitcoin as one computer running one task at a time, while in Flow it is hundreds of computers running several different tasks at the same time.
Different Roles in The Network
To achieve multitasking, Flow developers have created a protocol that allows you to create different roles within your blockchain network. These roles are carried out in the nodes of the network, each one of them with a very specific objective. This allows incoming tasks (transactions that are submitted) to be divided into unique ways. In this way, it is easier to attend to them.
â–¶ Result? Flow can take complex operations (such as those of a smart contract) and break them into small parts. Thus, each of these parts is processed by the network autonomously and, in the end, the results are joined to offer an appropriate response from the network.
The best thing is that this whole process is computationally undemanding, so a powerful CPU is capable of doing it thousands of times per second, making the network able to scale almost exponentially as the network grows in a number of nodes, and these nodes, in turn, have more powerful CPUs. In addition, no type of mining is carried out, since the network works thanks to the Proof of Stake (PoS) model, making it very efficient in terms of energy consumption.
Meta, Dapper Labs, and The Massification of NFTs
The creation of Flow is not something fortuitous. Dapper Labs has put a lot of thought and work into it. Since the creation of CryptoKitties, the company has been aware of the enormous challenge of creating scalable and secure networks for decentralized applications with a massive reach.
The accumulated experience led them to create Flow and they are already beginning to reap good results. Its ecosystem of NFTs and decentralized applications are chosen by big players in the Web2 industry, such as Meta (Instagram and Facebook), YouTube, Shopify, or Mattel.
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â–¶ The success of Dapper Labs is to have created a network of high speed, scalability, low cost, and reliability, such as Flow. Meta has understood this and is experimenting with the enormous potential that lies behind the adoption of blockchain technology and its application in spaces where the generation of content creator-community interaction is vital and highly dynamic.
â–¶ The success of Dapper Labs is to have created a network of high speed, scalability, low cost, and reliability, such as Flow. Meta has understood this and is experimenting with the enormous potential that lies behind the adoption of blockchain technology and its application in spaces where the generation of content creator-community interaction is vital and highly dynamic.
â–¶ Meta, in addition to adding NFTs to its applications, opens the door to new monetization mechanisms almost everywhere in the world. At the moment, 100 countries will have support for this feature on Instagram. The evolution of money, finance, and content monetization will not only help these networks to continue making money and followers. It will also help content creators to be duly rewarded for their efforts to create quality, curated content.
â–¶ At this point, the best of both companies for the massification of NFTs has many things in common, we only have to see how the technology will evolve, its acceptance, and integration in the creative flow of the networks that implement all these revolutionary technologies.
