The Internet Computer Protocol is the best solution we have in the world right now for stopping cybercrime. Google has said cybercrime should be listed as a national security threat, and it's one of the biggest problems on the planet, costing humanity collectively around $10 trillion a year. This is exactly why I say the future of the internet will be built on ICP — because ICP is the best solution for cybercrime.
Why centralized backends keep getting hacked
Most hacks happen because centralized systems are private databases built directly on hardware. They have admin panels, credentials that can be leaked, insecure APIs or APIs vulnerable to AI attacks, cloud misconfigurations, phishing, all kinds of vulnerable backend servers, and endless complexity that guarantees there's somewhere to slip in. If you want to see how toxic that is, imagine going viral only to have your website get hacked — or notice how a big chunk of the internet sometimes goes down because one person in one place screwed up one small thing.
How ICP secures everything on chain
ICP stops the vast majority of cybercrime because of how it's built: it hosts everything directly on a blockchain. All the code and all the data are locked inside the blockchain, with a layer of math between the outside world and that code and data. That means you can't just go mess with it by getting the root password of a PC, phishing someone's office computer, exploiting an admin panel, slipping through a tiny firewall error, or having AI hunt down every possible little issue. Preventing cybercrime the old way is extremely expensive, and even then you usually can't prevent it. This hurts smaller businesses trying to grow the most: nobody targets you when you're unknown, but the moment you start to grow you have to start dumping money into a security team and experts, because now you're worth attacking.
My website, secured by math
My own site is the example. It's built on infrastructure where you can't go in and hack it — it's secured by math. You can't swap a picture out because you don't like me, or put something disgusting on it and get it taken down. If it were hosted on WordPress, somebody could probably use an AI tool to deface it on a whim. Hosting on the blockchain is also cheaper, because micropayments mean I only pay for what's actually used. Right now it's read-only, but even with Internet Identity added you can sign in securely directly on the blockchain. On almost any other website there's one way or another to hack it, especially with AI — and that's a serious problem if your business depends on the site not getting hacked or taken over by ransomware.
Insider threats, governments, and the real-world case
Insider cybercrime is huge too: someone with access to everything gets fired but kept a way back in, and now you're paying them off or they're selling access to someone else. On ICP you can have verifiable identities — fire someone, remove them, and they can't access anything or keep a backdoor. That's why ICP solves huge real-world problems for small and medium businesses, and even for governments like Pakistan and Switzerland that are tired of spending enormous amounts and still can't build anything securely. Pakistan, constantly spied on and unable to secure its own servers, sees ICP as one of its only real hopes of protection — and relative to retail crypto holders, a government has real money to move.
I host my own site on ICP for the same reason: the moment I go viral I'm at risk of someone coming in and messing with it. I've gone viral several times, and the old options were all bad — dump money in and it still crashes, pay a lot and don't go viral and waste thousands, or get caught on a cheap plan without enough hosting. So my website is on the best infrastructure in the world, and more and more developers are going to move their clients onto ICP to protect them, because if you host a client on junk infrastructure and their site gets hacked, you're the one who ends up liable. This is a huge narrative for ICP: the problem is $10 trillion, and if you base the valuation on being the best solution, the market cap should be at least $100 billion — if not closer to a trillion — just on what it can do for cybercrime. This obviously wasn't financial advice; I'm an ICP maxi because of the tech. If you want to go deeper, watch my ICP Crypto playlist, and you can join the Jerry Banfield Family at jerrybanfield.com.