An Indian startup has created a decentralized Ethereum Push Notification Service (EPNS) notification protocol that allows dApps to send pop-up notifications to users.
EPNS founder Richa Joshi said the project team developed the protocol after discovering striking similarities between how applications worked in the early days of the Internet and how they work on Web 3.0.
She explained that Gmail or Orkut didn’t send notifications at first. Users had to check every time if they received new emails or messages. That changed when Apple launched notifications for internet applications in 2010. Joshi noted:
“All of a sudden, services started reaching out to users whenever an action was required on their part. This increased the level of engagement by 7 times and significantly improved interaction. ”
From this point of view, she said, dApps, smart contracts and other decentralized services in Web 3.0 work similarly to early GMail and Orkut. This is what prompted Joshi and her team to bring push notifications to the decentralized world and “take the industry out of the stone age of communications.”
According to Joshi, EPNS is a decentralized communication layer that “follows the spirit of Web 3.0 and is capable of delivering notifications to any platform, including cryptocurrency wallets, mobile apps, or even web browsers.” EPNS for decentralized apps and services will serve the same purpose as Apple Push Notification Service for iOS platforms.
EPNS will act as a decentralized middleware and verify the source, provide spam protection, and only send notifications to the wallet user if they have agreed to receive them. She added that users will have full control over receiving notifications:
“The protocol allows users to directly control which services they receive notifications from, it imposes rules on services, including spam protection for users, etc.”
According to the EPNS team, decentralized services will have a better chance of promoting their services in the cryptocurrency community using push notifications.
Similar to how the Chromium-based Brave browser rewards users for viewing ads, EPNS will incentivize cryptocurrency wallet users who opt for push notifications over the protocol. In addition, cryptocurrency wallet operators that allow EPNS to send notifications to their users will receive a portion of the revenue generated from using the system.
Decentralized applications are becoming increasingly popular in the cryptocurrency industry. Recently, trading volumes on decentralized exchanges surged amid a boom in interest in DeFi, and surpassed $ 10 billion in August.
