It’s impossible to navigate today’s crypto space without coming across decentralized applications, or dapps. Like regular apps, dapps have a broad range of use cases: there are financial services, decentralized file storage platforms, and even games.

Unlike regular apps, decentralized apps—as the name suggests—are built atop the decentralized infrastructure of peer-to-peer networks such as blockchains.

That means no one entity or person has control of a dapp. Instead, it’s secured by an infrastructure of nodes and crypto tokens. Because of this, dapps benefit from censorship resistance—with no single controlling entity, it’s almost impossible for a government or individual to take control of the network and shut it down.

Their decentralized nature also means that they’re unlikely to suffer from downtime. In 2021, when a Bitcoin price crash caused trading volumes on crypto exchanges to surge, many centralized exchanges went down, while decentralized exchanges (DEXs) continued to run as normal.


    What is Uniswap?

Uniswap is an Ethereum-based decentralized exchange (DEX) that lets users swap their ERC-20 tokens. Powered by the UNI token, it’s one of the most popular platforms in the emerging decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem. Its swapping function means that it doesn’t have to rely on buyers and sellers to create liquidity. In March 2021 Uniswap launched v3, which brought with it the ability to give users granular control over their liquidity, along with multiple fee tiers.


    What is PancakeSwap?

PancakeSwap is one of a number of DEXs that are actually built on Uniswap’s source code. Instead of running on the Ethereum blockchain, however, it’s powered by the Binance Smart Chain. That means that instead of Ethereum’s ERC-20 tokens, you trade in Binance Smart Chain’s BEP-20 tokens; tokens from other blockchains are supported by bridges to those blockchains. PancakeSwap is run by a group of anonymous developers, with users choosing how the platform is governed by voting with its CAKE governance token. Following the Ethereum network’s steep hike in fees earlier this year, PancakeSwap shot up in popularity.


    What is SushiSwap?

SushiSwap is another DeFi platform powered by the Ethereum blockchain that lets users swap tokens. Its native token, SUSHI, can be used by holders to propose changes to how it operates. Relatively new to the scene, it was created in 2020 by a group or individual called Chef Nomi, based on Uniswap’s open-source code.


    What is Aave?

Named after the Finnish for ghost (due to the founders’ vision for an open, transparent DeFi platform), Aave is a decentralized lending platform that lets users lend, borrow, and earn interest on crypto assets like ETH, BAT and MANA. Lenders are issued aTokens so that they can collect interest on deposits, while the native governance token is called AAVE.


    What is Axie Infinity?

And now for something completely different: a decentralized game. Inspired by games like Pokémon and Tamagotchi, Axie Infinity allows players to breed, raise, battle and trade all sorts of weird and wonderful creatures known as Axies. The little creatures take the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the decentralized Ethereum platform, meaning that players own their Axies; they can be stored, transferred or traded at will.


    What is Alien Worlds?

Alien Worlds is a DeFi NFT metaverse game where users can collect and trade unique digital items. Players can earn or buy NFTs, which are all minted on the WAX blockchain. Players compete for a resource called Trilium (TLM) which is needed to control competing Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (Planet DAOs).


    What is Upland?

Upland is another blockchain-based game. Instead of creatures, though, users instead can buy, sell and trade virtual properties. These properties are mapped to the real world, and digital assets can be snapped up with both fiat or the UPX coin.


    Steemit

Steemit is a blogging and social media platform that’s run on the blockchain, rewarding users with STEEM for both publishing and creating content. Users can vote on posts and comments, which ultimately decide the rewards for the posted content.


    What is Audius?

From games and blogs, we come to music streaming services. Audius is a blockchain-powered streaming platform that lets artists create exclusive content that’s time-stamped and completely immutable. Based on the AUDIO token, which is paid to artists when someone streams their content, Audius enables fans to pay artists directly for streaming their music, with no third parties or middlemen getting in the way. Artists on the platform include the likes of Skrillex and deadmau5—however, you won't find their full catalogues on Audius, and the majority of musicians using Audius are up-and-comers rather than household names.