I’m considering using libp2p for a project, and do not want to use blockchains at any point.
I understand that libp2p is used by several blockchain projects, but it’s unclear whether or not libp2p relies on blockchains to function.
Does libp2p depend on one or more blockchains?
You’re totally right, there are blockchain projects that build on top of libp2p, as well as non-blockchain projects.
libp2p itself doesn’t depend on any blockchain. In fact, this is an explicit goal of the library: We want it to be a general-purpose p2p networking library.
@Gaeel We(on Pyrsia) started using libp2p when we needed a good p2p solution and were able to use it without the need for blockchain. We built an entire p2p network with auto discovery and autoNAT and never had to worry about blockchain.
(As a side note you may find us building a blockchain on Pyrsia but that is not a requirement for libp2p)