Building in Rust on ICP: Unlock the Power of the World Computer

Rust developers have many advantages in building on the Internet Computer blockchain.

The Internet Computer (ICP) is a premiere blockchain for Rust developers. Rust is a first-class citizen on the Internet Computer, enabling projects focused on DeFi, NFT, Gaming, Social or any other segment. Rust unlocks the speed, security, decentralization and extensive developer resources of the Internet Computer.

The Internet Computer’s Advantages

• Truly decentralized (fully on-chain) dapps — ICP dapps are hosted fully on-chain while running at webspeed. This removes all dependencies on central cloud providers like AWS and Google Cloud, making the dapp completely decentralized.
• Simplified user onboarding (No tokens/wallets required) — Unlike other blockchains, the users of the ICP ecosystem don’t need tokens or wallets for using web3 dapps. They can access web3 dapps just likeany other website. At the backend, this is powered by the Reverse Gas Model. Signing-in is also extremely simple with Internet Identity, which allows using device authentication features like touch id and face recognition, instead of usernames andpasswords or seed phrases.
• Enormous Capabilites, Low Costs — ICP makes it possible to host dapps fully on-chain while keepting the cost of running dapps affordable for developers. A single canister smart contract can have more than 30GB of storage and can process complex computations spanning mutlitple blocks. For a simple comparison, the on-chain cost of data storage on Solana is $118,000 /GB/ year compared to $5 on the Internet Computer. This translates to cost of a storage a 3.3 MB image on ICP for just 1.6 cents compared to $390 on Solana.
• Build dapps without Oracles (Direct HTTPS Outcalls) — On other blockchains, a dapp that uses data from the web2 world has to resort to using third-party Oracle services. Thus, there is always a risk of the Oracles being compromised or manipulated. The Internet Computer can call web APIs directly via HTTP calls, thereby eliminating any intermediaries.
• Scalable Asynchronous Computing Environment — A single canister smart contract has one thread of execution for updates, but the Internet Computer can execute a massive number of canisters in parallel. Furthermore, the asynchronous nature of inter-canister calls on the Internet Computer maps nicely to the async/await syntax in Rust.Read more.

Find an overview of the key features here.

A Thriving Ecosystem:

The Internet Computer hosts a vibrant ecosystem of dapps using Rust, Motoko, TypeScript, and more.

DeFi: Taking advantage of ICP’s webspeed interaction and on-chain hosting, DeFi applications are a natural fit for the Internet Computer’s strengths. Premier projects include IC Lighthouse, ICPSwap, Infinity Swap, Sonic, and Spinner.Cash

Social: The Internet Computer’s Reverse Gas Fee model enables non-wallet based interaction, opening up a world of possible dapp applications, especially in the SocialFi space. Huge communities have formed on DSCVR, Distrikt, OpenChat, Seers, and Nuance.

NFTs: Building on the ICP means NFTs with dapp backends that enable real functionality and utility. Marketplaces include Entrepot, Yumi, NFT Anvil, and Memecake

Developer Resources

Developers can use their Rust skills and get their dapp upgraded to the Internet Computer. Start the journey here:

• Rust Quick Start
• Code Samples
• DFINITY Developer Discord and Developer Forum
• Best Practices for Canisters in Rust — Video with Q&A, Blog

Kickstart now

The Internet Computer community welcomes developers and has resources to help projects get off the ground immediately:

Cycles Faucet

To kickstart building on ICP, we offer 2 trillion Free Cycles to help getting started. Use them for testing and deployment of the project on the Internet Computer.

Dfinity Grants Program

The DFINITY Developer Grant Program aims to catalyze the growth of the Internet Computer ecosystem and make it accessible and approachable to more developers around the world by providing support to promising developers and teams.
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Start building at internetcomputer.org and join the developer community at forum.dfinity.org.

Building in Rust on ICP: Unlock the Power of the World Computer was originally published in The Internet Computer Review on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.