Introducing API3: Decentralized APIs for Web 3.0
Introduction
The popularity of blockchain-based apps is expanding, highlighting the decentralized Web3 trend. Web APIs, on the other hand, are encouraging microservices development methods by allowing data and reusable functionality to be shared across application kinds.
APIs have been utilized by developers to create cloud-based (centralized) programs and mashups for the past decade. Decentralized apps (Dapps) are the future economy, and centralized APIs are no longer an option.
In many circumstances, a blockchain-based smart contract may require data updates that can only be provided via a web API call. With increased interest for dApp development and Web 3.0, the need to access blockchain data is becoming more and more adamant.
What is Web 3.0?
The term “Web 3.0” is used to characterize the progression of network use and interaction along many pathways. This involves the transformation of a network into a database, a push to make material available by numerous non-browser apps, the rise of artificial intelligence technologies, the semantic web, the Geospatial Web, or Web 3D, and the semantic web, the Geospatial Web, or Web 3D.
Web 3.0 in lay-,man term is said to be the development of high-quality content and services. Web 3.0 is an extension of Web 2.0, which may be thought of as a service-oriented Web that encourages and enables user interaction and collaboration. There is no consensus on the characteristics that define Web 3.0. Web 3.0 may thus be considered as a semantic and customized variant of Web 2.0 from this standpoint.
Decentralized APIs
APIs are the backbone of the new digital economy, serving as a key component of digital solutions and the focal point of the API Economy. APIs have been centralized up to now. Decentralized apps are starting to deliver useful services in the field.
There is a growing demand for these applications to accept data or trigger events via standard Web APIs in areas such as decentralized banking. Due to an over-generalized and erroneous approach, generic Oracle solutions fail to adequately handle the API connectivity challenge to make amends, hence, API3 aims to spearhead a collaborative effort to develop a new generation of blockchain-native, decentralized APIs, or dAPIs for short, in this issue.
Advantages of Decentralized API
- Truly Decentralized
- Improved Productivity
- Improved Flexibility.
What is API3?
API3 is a working together to create, maintain, and commercialize dAPIs at scale. The incentives of the participants will be balanced using the governance, security, and value capture utilities of the API3 token to do this in a totally decentralized manner. Any API3 token holder will be able to stake to get direct voting powers in the API3 DAO, and the project will have a totally open and direct governance style.
The evolutionary line plotted through these developments has provided a relatively clear path for future use-cases of decentralized technologies as the use-cases for blockchain technology have evolved over the last decade from cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to smart contract platforms like Ethereum, to the recent boom in DeFi (Decentralized Finance).
Challenges Faced with API Connectivity
The Oracle Problem refers to smart contracts’ inability to access data not already stored in the blockchain. In practice, this implies that the smart contracts powering these apps are unable to directly access APIs from the blockchain in which the contract exists owing to the unique consensus-based security assurances established from employing a decentralized network of nodes as the application platform.
Solutions Proffered by dAPIs
The difference between dAPIs and existing decentralized oracle solutions is that, unlike current solutions, dAPIs include the APIs that underpin the data feed in the scope of the solution. In comparison to existing decentralized oracles, which do not consider the data source API to be within the range of their solution, this allows them to give improved data transparency all the way down to the true data source level.
This openness in the context of dAPIs comes from the API providers running the middleware required to link their API to the smart contract platform where its data and services are required. The middleware is known as “Airnode”, attributed to its light and robust serverless construction, which can be deployed in minutes. It does not need an API provider to manage and maintain the middleware on a day-to-day basis, and can be linked with APIs without the provider having to write any code.
In conclusion, the API Connectivity issue is more of an ecosystem-building issue than a technological issue. This means API3 may make use of the expertise of a wide range of professionals, and the project’s decentralized design will allow you to modify it in a way that best utilizes your abilities.
For more information, visit;
Website: www.api3.org
Twitter: www.twitter.com/API3DAO
Telegram: https://t.me/API3DAO
Medium: www.medium.com/api3