A walkthrough of Oyster Protocol public beta - Storing files on IOTA Tangle through Oyster Storage!

Hello Steemians! Oyster Protocol is a blockchain project which I have been following quite closely for months. A couple of days ago, they announced their main net launch and with it comes the public beta of their Oyster Storage service.

What is Oyster Protocol?

On their website, their tagline reads:

Goodbye Banner Ads.
Hello Oyster.
The future of website monetization and distributed storage, built on IOTA Tangle and Ethereum.

Oyster Protocol is a network which allows users to upload files to IOTA Tangle. It provides an easily accessible and anonymous way to store files with a small fee which will be paid with their native cryptocurrency $PRL. There are three other participants (Broker Nodes, Website Owners and Web Nodes) in the network. They combine to perform proof-of-work, thereby providing this file/data uploading service. The interactions among the different parties in the Oyster Protocol network create a self-sustaining ecosystem where users get the service they need (file upload and storage), the broker nodes and website owners get paid in $PRL, and website visitors get to browse ad-free websites.

Through this self-sustaining ecosystem, Oyster Protocol aims to provide a website monetization system by allowing website owners to be paid for providing a service to storage users. This will remove the need for website owners to display pesky banner ads, which may not be effective in the first place.

The actual role each of these participant plays is described in the whitepaper in detail. The whitepaper is quite technical but I encourage you to read it as it is quite interesting how things are working under the hood. It is the only project I have seen so far which leverages the IOTA Tangle and Ethereum blockchain for their network. Also, providing file/data storage is just one of the potential applications of the network. In the whitepaper, the team briefly described other possible dApps that can be developed based on the specifications of Oyster Protocol. So it is not just a one-trick pony and it can potentially be used by other applications in the future.

Oyster Storage Walkthrough!

Ok, enough of the technical details. Let's jump right into the walkthrough of Oyster Storage service!

• To start uploading files, head over to https://oysterstorage.com/

• Click on "Upload a File"

• Choose a file you want to upload by clicking on the blue folder button (For demonstration purpose, I downloaded a cute cat pic for uploading 😁). Next, click on "Start Upload".

Note: During the current beta, only a maximum of 5mb file size is supported. Also, you do not need to pay your own $PRL. All tests are sponsored by the Oyster Protocol team 😋.

• Upload will start. So just wait for a while... Please be patient.. it is still in beta... 😑

• Once done, you will be provided your Oyster Handle for the file you just uploaded. This is essentially your key to retrieve the file. So do keep it private if you are storing sensitive files through this service. And since this is the only way for you to retrieve your file in the future, do remember to save the handle somewhere.

Note: The Oyster Handle is actually your encryption key to the file. All files uploaded through the Oyster Protocol are encrypted, so as to ensure your privacy 😎.

• To retrieve your file, head back to https://oysterstorage.com/ and click on "Retrieve a File".

• Simply provide the Oyster Handle (cute_cat148ee02d8f53f7239957eabee537b7d8301a167a7fba7cd70d5538842505fe92XAFjWrZX) which you have saved just now. And click on "Retrieve File".

• You will be prompted to download the file

• Download it, post it in your reply and let me know if it is cute. I will give you a 100% upvote if you do so. Haha..

This service is somewhat similar to Filebin but the files uploaded through Oyster Protocol is encrypted by default. On the other hand, we cannot be sure for Filebin. Currently, 1 $PRL (~US$ 0.50) will allow you to store 64 GB worth of data for a year, this is mentioned in their announcement. US$ 0.50 to store 64 GB of data for a year is quite cheap! I hope the project will materialize and offer an alternative storage for everyone!

What do you think about this service? Will you use it when it is officially launch? Thanks for reading!