diff --git a/docs/concepts/what-is-ic.mdx b/docs/concepts/what-is-ic.mdx index 9fb18a4598..246896d481 100644 --- a/docs/concepts/what-is-ic.mdx +++ b/docs/concepts/what-is-ic.mdx @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ import useBaseUrl from "@docusaurus/useBaseUrl"; -# What is the Internet Computer? +# Overview of ICP The Internet Computer Protocol (ICP) bridges the gap between traditional programming and blockchain-based development. Smart contracts on ICP are expressive and scalable like traditional apps, but benefit from the trustless and decentralized execution of a blockchain. @@ -17,6 +17,7 @@ ICP is designed for a practical balance in the tradeoff between scalability and In the conceptual diagram above, decentralization increases going from centralized servers to Ethereum, but that happens at the expense of scalability. ICP is located in the middle of this spectrum. +The rest of this page walks through the core concepts and feature of ICP to show why that's the case. ## Subnets @@ -25,9 +26,16 @@ ICP shards smart contracts over multiple instances of the blockchain. Each instance is called a **subnet** and has its own set of decentralized nodes running the consensus algorithm among themselves, building their own chain of blocks, and executing smart contracts. Each subnet runs in parallel with other subnets. A smart contract on one subnet can communicate with another smart contract on a different subnet through sending messages. +Users can also send messages to smart contracts. +The following diagram shows the flow of a message on ICP: -A user interacts with a smart contract by sending a digitally signed message. -The following diagram shows the flow of the message on ICP: +