❓ Why i’m currently not ❌ invested in Filecoin, MaidSafeCoin, Siacoin, Storj and consider EOS in 2018! 🚀✨
Hello Steemit friends,
In this post i color my opinion on file storage solutions, centralized and decentralized based on knowledge i got from white papers, social platforms, videos. I’ll look especially into the EOS.IO Storage white paper, which i dissect a bit and bring up the core messages in comparison to other solutions for file storage. The goal is that you get a little easy to digest overview of available solutions and what the pros and cons are. Please beware that i know just a fraction from what all the available knowledge you can find on the internet. So i strongly recommend if you wanna invest in some of the solutions, kick the tyres for yourself to get a deeper understanding.
We all know in this space about the huge amount of solutions for blockchain apps begging for our attention and for people who not used to it, think of a huge bowl full of apples where just a few good are in, and the rest ist moldy and brown.
important note: I'm personally not invested in the listed cryptocurrencies and assets. This is no financial advice just my opinion. You're responsible to decide for yourself in what you invest and how much you can afford to lose!
Today we have a bunch of centralized data storage solutions integrated with other apps and services. I personally use Dropbox from time to time and know also the backup functionality of iCloud. My experience with such services is they are reliable, fast and comfortable. If I would change to another solution I would expect at least the same not less.
The blockchain solutions advertise their concepts with one crucial advantage from my point of view:
decentralization – if someone decide to shutdown a server or maybe 2 or more, there are many more which guarantee that the blockchain is still running and the apps build on top – with the centralized version, someone or a company can decide to shutdown their services and you are lost (Dropbox, GoogleDrive, Mega, iCloud). But is decentralization good for storage big data?
If you look what blockchain has to offer you’ll find a handful concepts like Filecoin, Siacoin, Storj and EOS.IO Storage. Another one ist Maidsafe but not based on a blockchain from what i read. Their goal is to provide a decentralized version for file storage of data. Maybe you know Microsoft already offers the Azure platform as commercial service for data storage which is quite successful. All the blockchain solutions are based on IPFS - InterPlanetary File System which is designed decentralized storing and sharing files permanently and it's open source.
What are some crucial factors which decide from my point of view if a solution is successful, whether it's centralized or decentralized?
- transaction fees (economic)
- reliable (24/7)
- fast (upload/download)
- big storage and file size (videos, pictures e. g.)
- secure data (sensible/personal data)
Following a short overview to the 5 blockchain storage solutions
Filecoin
Symbol: FIL (not on exhanges currently)
If you look in the whitepaper i hope you're a mathematician. For me it's simply not readable expect the introduction and that's the first and main reason why i would not invest. Don't invest in something you don't understand. The ICO seemed also shady and greedy to me.
website
whitepaper
Introducing Filecoin, a decentralized storage network by Protocol Labs
further findings:
The analysis Filecoin doesn’t want you to read
MaidSafeCoin
Symbol: MAID
If you look in the whitepaper one line on the first page immediately attracts attention
"With contributions from: Vitalik Buterin ([email protected])"
But he also critized some issues in the project.. With the further readings honestly i cannot warming up with the project.
website
whitepaper
coincheckup analysis (2/5 stars)
coinmarketcap
picture from coinmarketcap.com (18.10.17)
MaidSafe Technology Overview - Short by MaidSafe
further findings:
AUTONOMOUS DATA NETWORKS AND WHY THE WORLD NEEDS THEM
picture from coinmarketcap.com (18.10.17)
Siacoin
Symbol: SC
Two months ago i held a small amount of SC in their wallet because i read something promising about but soon after that i abandoned my investment because i saw better opportunities. One thing with many projects there is often so much uncertainty generated by the developers itself because of delays, slow communication and big claims are also a concern for me. If you wanna compete with Amazon S3 that's sporty in the humble beginnings. Currently i'm not a big believer in it.
website
whitepaper
coincheckup analysis (3/5 stars)
coinmarketcap
What is Siacoin (SC)? Why buy Sia? - by ZeroSum Life
further findings:
Blockchain Tech Company Sia (Siacoin) Could Disrupt Dropbox and Amazon
picture from coinmarketcap.com (18.10.17)
Storj
Symbol: STORJ
The developer page looks like a friendship community and from what i read is very active since 2014. Currently i cannot estimate what the chances to build a real business which maybe can compete with centralized solutions in the far future. The news page offers almost nothing explicitly about Storj from what i expected. The star rating by coincheckup is quite low (s. below).
website
whitepaper
coincheckup analysis (2/5 stars)
coinmarketcap
Storj: Decentralizing Cloud Storage by Storj
further findings:
Storj Token Sale: Cloud storage with the security of a blockchain
Storj.io: An open source, massively distributed object store and API for developers
picture from coinmarketcap.com (18.10.17)
EOS.IO Storage
Symbol: TOK (based on EOS)
Good readable and understandable whitepaper with aimed side blows at competitors. The paper describes why the other solutions are not competitive. Strong claims which i cannot verify because i don't wanna dig through all the other whitepaper which partly simply not understandable for me. Critics from the other camps wrote that the solution don't provide a precisely defined security solution, but i cannot verify that from what i know.
website
whitepaper
coincheckup analysis (3/5 stars)
coinmarketcap
EOS Consensus Presentation May 2017 by Dan Larimer
What issues adresses EOS.IO Storage in his whitepaper?
no guarantee of storage, hosting and bandwidth
"However, this P2P network layer does not provide or guarantee storage, hosting, or bandwidth. As it is currently structured, the IPFS network expects users to provide their own servers and related infrastructure."
"Because the security of a blockchain is highly dependent upon it being heavily replicated and 100% available, it is not suitable for storing large, potentially prunable, files."
"Storing bulk data in either the transaction log or the blockchain state is neither a practical nor a scalable solution to decentralized file storage. To address this problem, some blockchain applications have opted to store the IPFS file names."
"makes no guarantees about the availability of those files. IPFS does not guarantee the availability of files; a file may disappear if nodes decline to make it available. "
"An inaccessible file may ultimately break the utility and purpose of a smart contract .."
"Smart contracts cannot simply store IPFS filenames and be confident that the file will always exist and be accessible when needed."
How EOS.IO is directly compared to Filecoin, MaidSafe, Siacoin and Storj in terms of bandwith, user dependability, costs?
"Filecoin is a decentralized storage network created by the team behind IPFS.."
"Filecoin is similar to other decentralized storage solutions such as Maidsafe, Storj, and Siacoin. They all attempt to collect micropayments for both the storage and retrieval of data, and they all create their own dedicated currency. Furthermore, all of these products target home computer storage providers renting out space located behind slow internet connections. Lastly, they all require users to continually purchase cryptocurrency to pay for storage and bandwidth. This means the files may not be available for the general public to access for free via their browser. The cost of storage and bandwidth on these networks may be higher than that offered by cloud service providers such as Amazon S3. "
"As the number of users and files grows, the number of recurring payments will also grow. This will place increasing stress on their single-threaded blockchains.."
What EOS.IO Storage has to say about DropBox, Mega, GoogleDrive and iCloud?
"Unfortunately, these services do not have a common file naming system, like IPFS, nor do they integrate with an open P2P network, nor are they decentralized."
What EOS.IO Storage has to offer to improve current solutions?
"Assuming the price of TOK is constant, the ongoing cost of storage and bandwidth is 0. The market value of TOK may rise or fall while one’s files are stored. Either way, an individual will pay 0 net TOK for their storage and bandwidth usage."
"It is important to understand that the use of the IPFS network places fundamental limits on the ability of EOS.IO Storage to censor data."
"Users who need privacy may apply an encryption algorithm prior to uploading their files. While the content of the encrypted file will be private.."
"Existing decentralized solutions all rely on monthly micropayments, but this is likely not sustainable as it creates an ever-growing base load of transfers and is difficult to automate without trusting a 3rd party with ability to make payments on your behalf. Furthermore, micropayments create transactional friction which discourages adoption. In practice we typically see strong consumer resistance to micropayments in favor of flat fee or one-time payments."
"With EOS.IO Storage all TOK holders will be paying for this via a portion of the 5% EOS.IO annual inflation. More
specifically, those who will be storing files are exposed to this supply inflation as they are unable to sell their TOK until they delete their files. Those who require permanent storage effectively burn their TOK.
"Consider the example of a decentralized variant of YouTube. In this example someone uploads a home movie which is then viewed by millions of people. The publisher of the video does not want to or is unable to pay for the bandwidth consumption of a million viewers."
"EOS.IO Storage has the potential to fundamentally change the decentralized storage market by revolutionizing the economic model. Eliminating the overhead of micropayments and the perception of cost will enable innovative applications, such as decentralized video hosting, which were not previously viable. For the first time, a decentralized, cryptographically-secured platform may be able to offer a hosting service competitive to the current freemium, centralized, providers."
My conclusion at that point is i have a bias towards EOS.IO Storage because the developers have a long history of successful products like Steemit and the claims for their storage solution looks promising, especially because they adress the fundamental challenges which the other maybe will never do. Currently the crowdsale of EOS is ongoing and the price plummeted and will probably further decline due the high dilution with new tokens. But if i compare the 5 solutions in this post i would decide for EOS because i think they have a real chance soon (2018 and beyond) to get out real world products where the other are often trapped in slow and ineffective community development without a strong lead. Also the much higher exposure of EOS at exchanges is one indicator for more success. There is also a excellent post from @eosio about EOS.
As i wrote in my introduction i know just a fraction and will constantly learning each day, maybe soon from you! Thank you!
What do you think about storage solutions in the blockchain?
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Eos in my mind too looks good that what else do you think will be the best
You wanna know which one is my second place, right?
Regarding EOS, the more i read and think, the more i'm convinced because it is backed by real world apps, each development step also works as catalyst for the whole ecosystem. I think also for DTube, DSound it would
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