Fluence is a peer-to-peer platform, ready to revolutionize the way blockchain evolves. In this article, let’s find out what is Fluence, and its potential & growth aspects.

• What is Fluence?

• Features of Fluence Network

• Aqua and Consensus

• Peer-To-Peer Digital Economy

• Use Cases

Fluence is a community-driven, open-source, permissionless, and decentralized blockchain ecosystem. Fluence aims to help developers to host peer-to-peer applications in a trustless manner.

You might be wondering, several web2 platforms provide for application development, then why Fluence? Let me explain it in simple terms.

Developers want their apps to be as secure and smooth as possible. At the same time, users also want their data to be as safe and private as possible. But the existing web2 infrastructures are vulnerable to hacks. We all have heard how hackers stole user data from McDonalds in Korea and Taiwan. Fluence could be the go-to web3 solution for data privacy and safety. But how?

Fluence hosts apps that run independently of centralized institutions and cloud providers. Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services influence how the data is transferred and accessed around the globe. There is nothing wrong with that, yet having a robust web3 alternative can’t hurt, right!

However, in a peer-to-peer world, data security is often overlooked. But not for long. Fluence offers an integrated solution that can ensure app data never ends up in the wrong hands.

Is that all? No! Fluence has a ton of unique features in its sleeves. Fluence innovates the next generation of internet computing that is permissionless, scalable, and composable. Let’s take one bite at a time to understand these concepts.

Permissionless means a user does not require permission to interact with the network. It’s like an open supermarket, without any cashiers! But on the blockchain, no single user can misbehave and try and do fraudulent transactions. Permissionless also implies anyone can deploy applications using the extensive database of Fluence.

But what if you are a high-end developer of apps with millions of users? Or whether you are a small-scale developer with a few thousand users? Don’t worry, Fluence has got you covered. Fluence offers high scalability so that each application can host billions of users. The most interesting fact here is the ability of these applications to create subnets on the Fluence network. These subnets act as arms of Fluence without affecting speed and reliability. In technical terms, it is known as sharding.

Okay, now your apps are working smoothly, but being a vigilant developer, you are concerned about whether there is a verification mechanism.

Most other blockchain projects would explain how the technology is secure etc. But Fluence aims to be inclusive of both web3 and web2 people. That’s why Fluence provides you with the choice of selecting a specific validator whom you can trust. Let me put this straight. If someone wants to verify their own application data, they can become a validator on Fluence. Yes, you, as a developer, get to enjoy complete autonomy.

Above all, Fluence provides a flexible consensus mechanism. Explaining the consensus mechanism is beyond the scope of this article. But Fluence assures the trustless consensus is as good as you think. It enables applications to opt for consensus for specific tasks. In a nutshell, Fluence supports various consensus mechanisms as Aqua libraries.

Aqua is an open-source programming language fuelling fluence. Yes, it’s the heart and soul of Fluence that helps to implement better coordination in consensus. Aqua is worthwhile in implementing trusted consensus algorithms like Raft and trustless ones like Tendermint. That’s not it. Aqua allows for creating and sustaining peer-to-peer environments. It is much required, as peer-to-peer(p2p) transactions must be kept separate from p2p computations. Also, it forms the basis of an open, decentralized application marketplace. Aqua is also Turing-complete, based on process calculus, and allows to implementation of custom algorithms for any network topology.

The Internet envisions to bring equality to all. Yet, a generic digital divide exists, and multinational conglomerates own users’ data. These companies sell user data to others, making more profit. Take the example of google and amazon. They dominate the current data infrastructure niche. Eventually, it leads to data totalitarianism. The concentration of private data in a non-private environment is a threat to data management in general. How? Imagine a day when Google or Amazon fails. In a world that considers data the new gold, a system with a single point of failure is a significant risk.

The present world is fast becoming digital-oriented. More people use the internet daily, creating a large amount of data. This phenomenon is like to increase in the future. At a point, the existing system will fail terribly, leaving user data vulnerable. This tipping point is not exactly far away. Hence decentralization is the best practical solution and way forward. This is the opportunity for the peer-to-peer market model to dethrone business-business or business-client models. Logically speaking, Fluence has a better chance to lead this wave of decentralization. It provides flexibility, accessibility, and usability in addition to security to applications.

Adobe’s Digital Economy Index underlines this. In the last seven years, the digital purchasing power of the United States has increased by 23%. More people are choosing to live online. It further accelerates the need for decentralized data management efforts. P2P allows applications to connect with users and keep sensitive, private data under their control. Essentially, users own their data in a true sense. Fluence can facilitate this upcoming P2P revolution with the right tools.

As Fluence is a cloud computer, it has good deal of applications, from messaging to the internet of things. It can host web apps and other communication platforms.

Fluence can build censorship-resistant applications that can run on users’ devices. These apps can be social networks or streaming protocols. In an ever-growing creator economy, Fluence can become the beacon of hope for those from countries with high censorship norms. Fluence also removes the necessity of a central authority to manage the applications. It helps DAOs to establish and run sustainably. If DAOs are healthy, communities will become the finest force displaying the essence of decentralization.

First and foremost, programs written on Aqua are not executed fully at deployed devices. Firstly, the code is processed into particles. Then, particles travel over the network to trigger functions on remote peers. Sounds complicated? Not really. Consider particles as a bag of candies and each peer as a kid. Now you take the candy bag and go to each kid. The kid will demand a specific candy, and you can comfortably deliver the candy from the candy bag. Each peer has a different set of requests and requirements. The program chooses the function and activates the request. Simple, right?

Let’s also go through the WebAssembly runtime in Fluence, called Marine. Marine executes computations triggered by Aqua programs. Marine also provides a secure code sandbox. It ensures that hosted code can only access the system with explicit permission. These services are very lightweight and fast, and effectively, it performs as a distributed serverless engine. Marine and Aqua together standardize open source components for data processing.

Well, it's a wrap. To know more about Fluence, visit its website https://fluence.network/.