What is Internet Computer (ICP)

1. Project Introduction
Internet Computer (ICP) is a general-purpose blockchain launched in May 2021 by the DFINITY Foundation, with the goal of becoming the “world computer” by hosting decentralized applications (dApps).
ICP’s architecture is built upon several key components:
Internet Computer Consensus (ICC): A novel consensus mechanism consisting of four layers—Notarization, Blockchain, Random Beacon, and Identity.
Neurons: Users can stake ICP utility tokens in neurons to vote on network governance proposals, earning an annual yield of 11%–22%. Developers can also convert their ICP tokens into Cycles to pay for computation and storage.
Canister Smart Contracts: Advanced smart contracts built using WebAssembly code and memory, enabling developers to create dApps without gas fees, as Cycles are covered by developers instead of users.
Motoko: While developers can use any WebAssembly-compatible language (Rust, Go, C/C++, TypeScript, Java, Python, Ruby, Swift, etc.), Motoko is a purpose-built language optimized for developing dApps on Internet Computer.
2. Team & Investment Info
Dominic Williams – Founder of the Internet Computer Protocol and DFINITY Foundation. Former President & CTO of String Labs, distributed computing engineer at Mirror Labs, and founder/CEO of Smartdrivez. Graduate of King’s College London.
Pierre Samaties – Chief Business Officer, previously a Partner at the strategic consulting firm Roland Berger and Managing Partner/CEO of RWE Middle East.
Jan Camenisch – CTO and member of the Technical Governance Board at Sovrin Foundation. Former Principal Researcher at IBM Research and Research Assistant Professor at Aarhus University and ETH Zurich.
Funding:
August 28, 2018: DFINITY raised $102M in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto-focused fund a16z and Polychain Capital. Other investors included SV Angel, Aspect Ventures, Village Global, Multicoin Capital, Scalar Capital, Fenbushi Capital, KR1, and community members.
February 2018: DFINITY raised $61M in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz and Polychain.
Early 2017: DFINITY conducted an ICO, raising 3.9M CHF (~$4.3M).
3. Social Media URLs
X: https://x.com/dfinity
Telegram: https://t.me/+m8tiEFaaNR8xNjNl
Medium: https://medium.com/dfinity
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dfinity
4. Token Info
Token Symbol: ICP
Total Supply: 524,674,400
Token Type: ICP Mainnet
Issuance/Burn Mechanism: Both inflationary and deflationary
Block Explorer:
https://dashboard.internetcomputer.org/
Token Distribution:
Total Initial Supply: 469,213,710 ICP
First-Year Inflation Rate: 10%, decreasing to 5% over the next eight years
Allocation:
Early Contributors: 9.5%
Seed Investors: 24.72%
Strategic Investors: 7%
Presale Investors: 4.96%
Strategic Partnerships: 3.79%
Community Airdrop: 0.8%
Initial Community Allocation: 0.48%
Node Providers: 0.22%
Internet Computer Association (ICA): 4.26%
Team Members: 18%
Advisors: 2.4%
DFINITY Foundation: 23.86%
5. Related Links
Official Website: https://internetcomputer.org/
White Paper: https://dfinity.org/whitepaper.pdf
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dfinity/
GitHub: https://github.com/dfinity
Other Info:
https://www.rootdata.com/Projects/detail/Internet%20Computer%20-%20Dfinity?k=NzM%3D