Thread by @balajis

How to architect a crypto app

Start by sketching out the frontend and backend as normal. Then replace a few key backend calls with reads and writes to a decentralized database, namely a blockchain. balajis.com/yes-you-may-ne…

In other words, you don't need to throw out everything you know about web or mobile development. And you can often still use a standard DB as the data store for much/most of your app.

But for certain key functions, like sending/receiving funds, that's an on-chain operation.

Anyone who's built anything over the last decade is familiar with the concept of using multiple databases. At a minimum, you have your main Postgres plus a data warehouse or the like for analytics.

Now think of a blockchain as another DB to interact with.
docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.1/topics/…

Just like data warehouses have a different use case from the main relational database underpinning your app, blockchains have yet a different use case still.

The fundamental difference is that blockchains are *massively multiclient databases*.
balajis.com/yes-you-may-ne…

Your company is typically the only root user for your relational DB. The only one that can read & write to every row in every table.

Not so for blockchains. They trade off speed to massively scale root access. Every blockchain user is a root user. balajis.com/yes-you-may-ne…

Back in the day, many pointed out how web apps were worse than their desktop equivalents on key features (like latency, graphics).

This is similar to thinking of blockchains as "slow databases". Yes, they have fewer transactions per second. But far more simultaneous root users.