Building a decentralised website

I'm going to cover the main aspects of building a truly decentralised website. If you're interested in web3, you'll find this helpful.

A wallet with Ethereum:

To do anything on the decentralised web, you need a wallet like Coinbase Wallet or MetaMask, and some Ethereum.

Anything you do on the decentralised web involves a transaction, and gas fees (transaction fees). I used Coinbase Wallet and bought Ethereum using GBP.

Buy an ENS domain name:

An ENS domain is your property on the decentralised web.

It's like a domain name and your bank details (so people can send you crypto). I bought by ENS domain name (ntkris.eth) for $73.08 ($26.10 domain + $46.97 gas fees).

Write code for your website:

I wrote basic code for my website using React, TailwindCSS and NextJS, and pushed the code to a GitHub repo.

Set yourself up on Fleek:

Fleek helps you deploy decentralised websites.

You connect your GitHub account, select your repository and Fleek does the rest. Your decentralised website will be accessible on a link provided by Fleek.

Connect your ENS domain:

To connect your ENS domain name to Fleek you need to process a transaction on the blockchain.

The transaction is free but you need to pay gas fees. I paid $22. Once done, you can access your ENS domain (ntkris.eth) using the browser on a wallet, or by adding .link to the end (ntkris.eth.link).

Exciting but expensive.

The decentralised web is exciting because it cannot be censored. But it's also expensive. I'm optimistic about this technology and believe the cost will come down.