The combination of a strong PoW basis with p2p overlays will power DEXes, atomic swaps and many other applications.

I read the src code of some projects last week and my #1 is… tada … OXEN. A fork of monero. Has a working app (Session). Dev does not re-use questionable code and writes C++.

Overlay Networks will have to compromise in many areas. The community may be curious and encourage experiments, so as not to stifle innovation.

Introduction to p2p design:

[1] https://cse.engineering.nyu.edu/~ross/papers/UnderstandingKaZaA.pdf (excellent black box analysis, still relevant)

[2] https://libp2p.io/ (the new standard, i.e. IPFS)

[3] Polygon Miden (shift to private accounts)

p2p overlay is used loosely here, meaning only a subset of the network forwards and stores messages and for a limited period of time. Both peers had to be online historically. This strong p2p proposal is softened in most designs today. Peers do run apps such as a messenger or a swap protocol.

The easiest way to check out Oxen is to https://getsession.org/download