Foundations
Fully onchain apps
An application can run entirely on Irys. The pages users see are served through the gateway. The data it creates is stored on the network. The logic runs in smart contracts on IrysVM, the network's execution environment. Payments settle on the same chain. No part of it depends on a conventional web host.
Why do decentralized apps still rely on web hosting?
Decentralized applications have almost always kept one foot in the old web. The smart contracts run onchain, but the website people use to reach them is hosted on a cloud service, and whoever hosts it controls the door.
On Irys, both layers live onchain, because a frontend is data and Irys serves data. The gateway delivers stored pages the way a content delivery network delivers them, so the app people open is the same one stored on the chain.
The gateway itself is not a trusted party. Every file it serves carries the same cryptographic receipt as any other data on Irys, so a browser or a node can verify that the page it received is the page that was published.
Example: an onchain email protocol
Consider an email protocol built on Irys. Messages travel between wallet addresses and are stored onchain in encrypted form. Messages can sit on 30-day terms and renew while a conversation stays active. The inbox application is hosted onchain too, served through the gateway, and it decrypts messages locally with the user's keys.
A new messaging network is only useful if it can reach people, so the protocol connects to existing email through bridge nodes. A bridge node receives mail from the traditional internet, encrypts it, and writes it onchain. Mail sent to a legacy address travels the same road in reverse. From the first day, the network can exchange mail with the email system everyone already uses.
Bridge nodes are a new kind of infrastructure, and they are paid for their work. Users fund inbox hosting and message relay, and bridge operators earn that funding by providing the service. Mining nodes secure the network while bridge nodes serve the application, and the application runs as its own economy.
What kinds of apps can run fully onchain?
Email is one example. The same pattern fits any application that needs a served frontend, persistent data, smart contract logic, and a way to pay the operators who run it. Every layer is composed from protocol-level parts, and an application built this way does not stop working because a hosting company did.