InPrint

Decentralized applications (dapps) and the public, permissionless blockchains on which are built, promise a shift in how we interact with the web and offers a compelling alternative to centralized media brokers and their pitfalls. Up until now, however, the vast majority of dapps relate to financial applications. To realize Web 3.0’s promise, dapps have to expand their reach into other (non self-referential) domains and, in particular, those that have made the immoderation of current Web 2.0 model most manifest. <br/> The broad idea behind "Inprint" is to offer an alternative to centralized social media platforms (like, facebook, instagram, twitter, tumblr, pinterest, patreon, etc...). Instead of the "back-end" being a company server, the backend "database" is literally a blockchain. <br/> Using our web app, an interested user can create a network, setting various settings and parameters detailing how they want their network to function. This web app deploys a smart contract to an Ethereum-compatible blockchain with the desired settings on the user's behalf. From then on, the "network" is solely owned by the creator of the station; no one can take it down, and since the only thing needed to "tune into a network" and read the network's posts is a small HTML/CSS/JS bundle, no one can prevent someone from reading or interacting with that network. Hence the working slogan "Own your data. Own your community".

The components of our web app are relatively straightforward. Hardhat for smart contract development and deployment/testing, React for the front end. There is also a high-level JS API that acts as an intermediary between the blockchain and the front end. We chose to deploy to Optimism mainnet and were extremely happy with the speed and the relatively low cost. <br/> There are two "hacky" things were particularly proud of (a) using a little assembly in the contract (to cut down on cost), and (b) using bit fields to hold each network's settings/flags. This was also to cut down on cost.