Will decentralized storage protocols overtake the cloud storage market?


[ad_1]

According to IDC’s “Global Enterprise Infrastructure Quarterly Tracker: Buyer and Cloud Deployment” report, the global cloud storage market is expected to reach more than $ 100 billion between 2020 and 2025.

Although centralized cloud storage solutions are the dominant cloud storage technology, they have many drawbacks.

Frequent data leaks, server failures, centralized operational control and hacking incidents have caused more and more developers to think about how to store data in a safe, stable and inexpensive way.

The development of blockchain technology offers a new opportunity for decentralized storage services.

What is the decentralized storage protocol?

Based on blockchain technology, decentralized storage protocols introduce an incentive system into its ecosystem with a tokenomic model to achieve distributed and piecewise data storage on multiple network nodes.

There are two broad categories of decentralized storage protocols.

One uses storage as arithmetic power, and users exploit it by providing space on the hard drive. This consensus mechanism is compared to Bitcoin-type projects, and the representative project is Siacoin.

The other is storage as a service, providing adequate storage as arithmetic power – the user completes the data storage service for mining. Representative projects are Filecoin, Arweave and BitTorrent.

Why are decentralized storage protocols needed?

Reliability

The blockchain is a simple digital ledger of transactions that is replicated and distributed across the network of computer systems. Relying on the blockchain, a cloud storage protocol has the characteristics of decentralization and encrypted storage, and it builds a reliable and decentralized data storage mechanism.

In the decentralized storage protocol, all data blocks are checked. Workers must verify all deposited data, modified to prevent data tampering.

Distributed storage technology systems perform load balancing and prevent traffic from concentrating in one location, reducing the speed of data storage and retrieval. As they store multiple copies of the original data in various places, users do not experience any data loss even if a machine crashes or stops working.

Security

For security reasons, each copy of data is encrypted, cut and stored with several redundancies in the nodes of the network. Only the private key can get the data, decrypt it and display it with digital currency. And since the data is stored in a decentralized manner, any intruder trying to hack these storage nodes will only get part of the data, not the entire data file.

Scalability

The number of decentralized storage nodes is infinitely scalable and each node can flexibly adjust the storage capacity and quality according to its resources.

Justice

With the emergence of millions of decentralized nodes, the market will be more competitive and open. Powerful centralized storage providers cannot control the cost of data storage, which will allow fairer pricing for the entire storage services market and favor nodes to improve the quality of storage services.

Comparison of four decentralized storage protocol projects and data performance

Decentralized storage protocols are an effective addition to cloud storage. In the age of Web 3.0, where data security and ownership of user data are more critical, its reliability, security, scalability, and fair pricing will continue to attract more businesses, especially companies from blockchain.

Footprint Analytics summarizes a side-by-side comparison using Arweave, Filecoin, BitTorrent, and Siacoin as project representatives.

Comparison of decentralized storage protocols
Comparison of decentralized storage protocols

According to Footprint Analytics, the token market capitalization performance of the above four projects is as follows:

  • Filecoin still holds the leading position in decentralized storage protocols.
  • Arweave, which became the data storage protocol for the Solana blockchain in August, has seen its token price rise rapidly and its market capitalization is comparable to that of the BitTorrent BTT token.
  • Siacoin, on the other hand, was a mediocre performer, unable to make a breakthrough.
  • In general, the development of decentralized storage protocols is still relatively slow.
Footprint analysis: Filecoin ranks first in decentralized storage protocols
Footprint analysis: Filecoin ranks first in decentralized storage protocols

Summary

Decentralized storage protocols are an effective addition to cloud storage. In the age of Web 3.0, where data security and ownership of user data is more important, its reliability, security, scalability, and fair pricing will continue to attract more businesses, especially companies from blockchain.

The curtain of the Web 3.0 revolution has just opened and the popularity of decentralized storage has yet to be sustained in terms of infrastructure, funding, talent and social consensus.

Most decentralized storage protocols are still in the concept formation or development stage, and national policies will influence the development of the industry as well. Based on different national policies and market consensus, centralized storage platforms will continue to be the primary storage method for a period of time.

Disclaimer: The contents of this article represent the opinions of Footprint and are provided for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment advice.

This work is the author’s original. Please indicate the source for the reprint. Commercial reproduction requires permission from the author. Unauthorized commercial reproduction, extract or use in any other way will be investigated for associated legal responsibilities.

This report was brought to you by Footprint Analytics.

What is the imprint

Footprint Analytics is an all-in-one analytics platform for visualizing blockchain data and discovering insights. It cleans and integrates on-chain data so that users of all experience levels can quickly start researching tokens, projects, and protocols. With over a thousand dashboard templates and a drag-and-drop interface, anyone can create their own custom charts in minutes. Discover blockchain data and invest smarter with Footprint.

Posted in: DeFi, Technology
Quadency

CryptoSlate Newsletter

Presenting a summary of the most important daily stories in the world of Crypto, DeFi, NFT and more.

Get a edge in the crypto-asset market

Access more crypto and background information in each article as a paying member of CryptoSlate Edge.

Chain analysis

Price snapshots

More context

Register now for $ 19 / month Discover all the benefits

[ad_2]

Comments are closed.