TEA Party

The TEA Party is a social messaging TApp that allows users to message each other. The TEA Party is also a template that TApp developers can use to host their own messaging app. Every instance of a TApp using this template is called a TEA Table. The TEA Project team hosts a TEA Table known as the Help Desk where contestants can ask questions.
Screen Shot 2021-11-20 at 10 50 03 AM
From the image above, you can see what the TEA Party interface looks like.
  • Users log in and can post messages which costs a certain amount of TEA.
  • There is an expiration date printed next to each message. Users can pay extra to bump their message and extend the duration of the message.
  • There is also a red delete icon to remove any message that the user themselves have posted.

Why is TEA Party a typical Web3 application?

Before we get into this question, please first read more about what makes_a_web3_application.
Web3 applications are different than web 2.0 applications in multiple ways:
  • No centralized hosting services.
  • No centralized database.
  • No centralized authority (censorship).
  • Tokenomics driven.

No centralized hosting

When you start the TEA party, you'll probably notice that it's different than a regular web 2.0 application. You're not going to a domain name such as teaparty.com. Instead, you're given several URLs with different IP addresses such as in the screen shot below.
urls
You'll notice that the IP addresses are different, but the rest of the URLs are identical. The part that's the same correlates to the IPFS CID of the current version of the TEA Party front end. The IP addresses are the IPs of the hosting CML. In the screenshot above, you'll notice how there are three TEA mining machined (with hosting CML planted) currently hosting this TEA Party application.
There's no "domain name" or "server" involved with TApps. As you can see, anyone (including yourself) can become a host and earn the TApp hosting fee. There's no centralized server involved with deploying a TApp. On the other word, if some super power does not like this application, there's no way for them to take this application offline. TApps say bye bye to cloud server hosting and instead utilize the TEA Project's decentralized hosting node architecture.

No censorship

The code and data are running inside a hardware protected enclave. No one (including the developers and the hosting miners) can see what's actually inside. Therefore, there's no way for anyone to censor TApps. If any individual miner does not like a particular TApp, he can stop hosting it. But as long as other miners are willing to host that TApp, then it's still accessible and its content is readily available.

No centralized database

Not only is the hosting of TApps fully decentralized, the database is also fully decentralized as well. The database layer is probably not something you can see from the front end. But if you read the full developer documentation, you'll understand how the state machine and orbitdb work together to store the application data.

Tokenomics driven

In web 2.0, end users sell their privacy to the tech giants in return for "free" application services. In Web3, because there's no centralized "operator" to steal your privacy for profit, there won't be any free lunch provided by the applications. Someone has to pay for the service as the miners and developers need to make a living. Some coming from the web 2.0 world might think this is bad, but this is actually how things should work. Because all the API call to the public service need to be paid, all storage will need either RAM or hard drive space. These computing costs are eventually paid by end users. In a TApp like the TEA Party, users can see the price of posting message or sending private notifications.
Screen Shot 2022-03-27 at 10 00 05 PM
There might be some new business model that end users can earn "free" services in exchange of some work or data. We'll continue trying these models in future versions of the TEA Party.

How to Use TEA Party

Users can consult the TEA Party user guide published during Epoch 9, (March, 2022).

TEA Party TApps Earn Tips

During the mining contest epochs, TEA Party-based TApps will earn tips every 1000 blocks during contest rounds. The amount of the consume action is as follows:
  • 10T per message.
  • Maximum tip of 1000T per 1000 blocks.
  • A minimum of 1T is tipped out every 1000 blocks (in case there are no messages during that block time).
Keep in mind that this amount of TEA tipped out is used to buy the TApp's tokens which is then distributed proportionally to token holders and miners.