I'm all for encrypted PII and the benefits of it will be great for cryptocurrency as well as other digital applications like IOT and eCommerce . but id like to ask you about how you think arewave will stack up to something like civic or even something like Ontology or NULS who could easily intergrate this into a wider blockchain environment at scale
Secondly the data storage market already has storaj and sia so they going after 2 markets that already have more established projects in the field so how do you see a split resource project stack up against a specialised one
Hi @chekohler, thanks for your comment! First of all, from what I gather, Arweave is focusing on building a data storage protocol that dApps can use to store data permanently on-chain. In that regard, Civic can be seen as a partner rather than a competitor. However, if I'm not wrong, Civic is storing PII on the user device. The disadvantage is: when the user changes device, the information is not port over. That's what I experienced many months ago, although I'm not so sure how much of that has changed recently. Nevertheless, Arweave will open up an opportunity for such dApps to fully utilise the benefits of a blockchain - data will always be immutable, available and secured.
As for Ontology and NULS, the focus is rather different. These two are trying to compete in the multi-chain space. But as you said, they could always dive into this area. However in my opinion, it's not advisable for them to try competing in multiple areas when they haven't even delivered their current roadmap. And it wouldn't be wise for them to risk entry into the already crowded data storage market at this stage.
On the other hand, Arweave is not really a split resource project. It's building more capabilities but all together is solely focused on providing a data protocol for permanent storage use cases. However, like you mentioned, the data storage market is seriously crowded with competition. We have storj and sia leading the pack at the moment. But, iirc, these two don't store data on-chain, which mean you don't get the full benefits of a blockchain. I believe they're only using blockchain to store file hashes for data forgery protection, while having the content sliced and distributed across the network participants.
If we consider how Arweave stacks up against these, the ability to pay once and get the storage forever will prove to be more afforable in the long run. Storj, for example, charges by monthly subscription or by data size. At a certain point in time, the running costs will definitely be more than Arweave's. Other than that, these competitors haven't shown much promise in terms of scalability. Some of them are based on Ethereum and its network is susceptible to congestion at times.
In my view, the dApps market is growing and there'll be use cases where permanent storage is needed. There're already a few that's implemented or in progress. So, it's definitely something I'd look forward to.
Geez man thanks for taking the time to answer my questions in such detail lol you’ve really got me curious about this project now and I’ll start doing my research on it when I have some time!
You’ve got some great insights and I’m sure it w lol translate into you blog growing on steemit! I’ll definately be following your posts more closely in future!
No worries bro! Always glad to make new friends in crypto :)