Initial Understanding of xlog Decentralized Blog#
In the past few days, I had a whim to find a place to write a blog. Firstly, I didn't want to build a website myself and spend money on maintenance, and secondly, I wanted my blog to have one or two comments and interactions. After searching around, I unexpectedly found the xlog platform. So, I would like to share my understanding and doubts about this place. Since I am not very familiar with many things, there may be omissions, and I hope for communication and corrections.
What is xlog?#
In simple terms, it is a blogging platform that includes most of the functions that a blog community should have: publishing blogs, liking, commenting, and following. It also supports direct import of markdown, as well as some support for images, articles, and portfolios. It basically has comprehensive support for the basic functions of a blogging platform. Looking at it from the perspective of a blogging system, its functions are quite comprehensive and convenient.
So, what distinguishes it from other blogging platforms? It is a system developed based on blockchain, and everything it has is on the blockchain, including article content, user information, and records of likes and comments. Article content and user information are all NFTs!
Because it is on the blockchain, it has the following characteristics: decentralization, emphasis on privacy, and security.
So far, the main hype around blockchain seems to still be about cryptocurrency speculation, but this project’s application and realization of blockchain is quite exciting.
How to Join xlog?#
You can take a look at this article Five Minutes to Have a Decentralized Blog on Blockchain and IPFS - Songkeys, which is very comprehensive. In simple terms, you need a blockchain wallet, and once connected, you can join the xlog platform. Then, you can go to a faucet to get some tokens and proceed with normal blogging, liking, and bookmarking operations. This process is similar to registering on CSDN or Blog Park.
The wallet in web3 is different from a traditional wallet, and the explanation can also be found in the aforementioned article. The faucet can be seen as a tap in life, from which we can receive the necessary tokens. In web3, all operations on the blockchain must use tokens to pay for gas, which is why you need to get tokens from the faucet.
All steps on the blockchain require token payments, meaning that on the xlog platform, when we publish blogs, modify our user information, comment, like, etc., we need to pay tokens. This fee is the gas fee, which can be simply understood as the gasoline cost required to send information to the blockchain. Of course, tokens are not only used to pay gas fees; they can also be used for actual payments, just like Bitcoin.
So far, these tokens are distributed for free by the platform through the faucet. It seems that as long as your token balance is less than 0.02, you can go to the faucet to receive 0.02 tokens for free on that day. This amount is sufficient for users' daily use and is said to be enough for users to publish over a hundred blogs.
Therefore, although this blogging system is attached to web3 and blockchain, with wallets, tokens, and other complex concepts, ordinary users can use it completely for free in their daily lives. Of course, if ordinary users want to understand the underlying blockchain knowledge better, it is recommended to study it in depth.
A Deeper Dive#
How Does xlog Confirm Your Identity?#
On web2 platforms, we need an account and password for systems like CSDN and Blog Park to know that you are you, not someone else, allowing you to log in and perform operations after logging in. So how does xlog, without a centralized platform, registration, or login, determine that you are you?
It is through wallets, which use principles related to cryptography to ensure security. Users retain private keys, while the public key is made public as an address on the network. Users sign with their private keys, and the blockchain verifies the signature with the public key. When users publish articles, they sign with their private keys, and the blockchain verifies that this is your article, thus confirming your identity.
Where Are Published Articles Stored?#
Traditional article data is stored on servers, so where is xlog's article data stored without servers? On the blockchain.
We can simply understand the blockchain as a huge data pool. This pool is maintained by everyone who establishes this chain, still ensuring the security of the blockchain through cryptography.
For a system, security and convenience are generally difficult to achieve simultaneously, and the same goes for blockchain. The blockchain guarantees security but loses some convenience. If data is truly stored on the blockchain, a problem arises: data loading is slow, and since operations require gas payments, the costs are relatively high. Moreover, storing all data on the blockchain would waste storage space on the blockchain. Therefore, xlog stores data on IPFS. IPFS is a protocol that also uses principles related to cryptography to ensure data security in a distributed manner.
However, IPFS, a distributed file system, is not a blockchain; it uses similar cryptographic principles to ensure data security. We can think of it as another server that stores our data. When we request data from an IPFS node, if that node does not have the data, it will ask neighboring nodes for it.
IPFS does not seem to be a completely free system; the IPFS on xlog should be a service purchased by the platform? If this cost is not paid by users, will it be paid by users in the future (after all, the chain that xlog is on also belongs to the developers of xlog)?
Integration with Web2#
IPFS still does not solve the slow reading problem; it only addresses storage issues and some reading speed issues.
To ensure faster loading speeds, xlog still uses Redis and PostgreSQL databases to store necessary data such as user articles to guarantee loading speed. This actually uses web2 technology, but using web2 technology does not affect its characteristics on the blockchain; it remains secure because the platform uses web2 technology mainly to ensure loading speed. In contrast, another web3 application, mirror.xyz, claims that using web2 has affected the degree of decentralization.
This brings to mind that the future of web3 does not necessarily need to completely cut off from web2; the two can combine and leverage each other's technological advantages. Centralization and decentralization are not binary opposites.
Immutability#
This is a major feature of blockchain and a guarantee of its security. The blockchain ensures that content on the chain cannot be altered through its cryptographic security, which is also how xlog guarantees the safety of articles. However, this could also be the biggest problem.
When we publish content on web2 platforms, it is subject to review to ensure compliance with community standards, and it may be taken down, modified, or deleted by community administrators. The immutability of blockchain means that content on this platform cannot be taken down, deleted, or modified by administrators, and even users themselves cannot modify or delete it. We may see an article modification feature, but once it is on the chain, it cannot be modified; the content you modify is merely a new version, while the old content remains on the chain, and we can still find the article through the original information.
Some may feel that this is a great feature of blockchain, meaning it is yours, belongs only to you, and will not be censored. But I think this is also a frightening aspect. Once your words are published, they no longer belong to you. Moreover, if someone publishes forbidden content through xlog, no one can make it disappear from the blockchain. Content can only be monitored, not managed.
The author mentioned a method that may not display certain content on the front end, and in the future, it may be decided through DAO and community governance whether an article should be taken down and not displayed on the front end (this method may, to some extent, exacerbate the spread of harmful content and lose the meaning of review).
I think this is a superficial solution. This method is similar to removing a dish from the menu; we cannot see it or order it. However, the immutability of the blockchain means that this dish still exists. Having its information on the chain means we can find the chef directly to make this dish, still able to see the relevant content.
If xlog wants to ensure this decentralized mechanism, it will lose the ability to be managed and can only be monitored. I am not sure if it is possible to directly delete stored article information from the IPFS server; I am still not very familiar with these aspects of IPFS. If it is possible, does that mean it also loses some degree of decentralization?
Conclusion#
At first glance, this project is quite interesting. Beyond cryptocurrency speculation, it showcases a practical application of blockchain that is conceptually exciting, secure, and ensures that data is not owned by those giants, will not be used for big data operations, and will not be censored, while being a fully functional blog community.
It ideally realizes the concept that data does not belong to the platform but is owned by oneself.
I still do not understand how the platform maintains its operation. Is the data really owned by oneself? After publishing, the data cannot be completely deleted or corrected. Most importantly, I think regulation is still a relatively important aspect, and it can hardly be regulated.
Most web3 projects seem idealistic, and in practical application, I believe they will ultimately involve some philosophical questions.
What kind of community is an ideal community?
Supplement#
This article is a preliminary understanding and reflection on xlog, not very rigorous, and I welcome criticism.
If there are any typos or grammatical errors that I did not catch, they will also have to be put on the chain.
References include the following content:
The First Open Source On-Chain Blogging System xLog - DIYgod
Dialogue with RSS3: Paving the Way for Web3 Social and Content Creation - BlockBeats
Xlog, Let You Have a Modern Style Blog for Free in Five Minutes
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