An NFT Backup Dapp To Protect Your NFTs

Adrien Be.

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Aleph.im

7 min readMar 29, 2021

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We are thrilled to lift the curtain on this new “NFT Backup” feature launched today on our publicly available DApp. This helps keep precious NFTs safe at all times. It lets you backup NFTs in a few clicks; and the most beautiful part is that the backup resides on our unstoppable decentralized storage solution, meaning no-one can take down that backup. Our NFT Backup DApp currently supports Rarible, Superare and Opensea (except the untransfered gasless mints).

“NFTs are already doing the headlines as their images are sometimes replaced or removed. Our NFT Backup feature provides an easy-to-use solution that works right now” — Jonathan Schemoul aka Moshe Malawach, CEO at aleph.im

About Aleph.im

Aleph.im’s core mission is to help re-decentralized the web. By helping apps and protocols strip off the centralized parts of their stack, achieving a fully decentralized architecture. Aleph.im achieves this by providing decentralized databases (including file storage), computation and a decentralized identification (DID) framework. You can think of aleph.im as a decentralized AWS or Firebase.

TLDR For doers

Back up your NFT in a few clicks on https://account.aleph.im/#/nfts
That back up resides on aleph.im decentralized storage
That back up is also pinned to IPFS as many times as we have nodes on our network. Decentralized pinning services here we come!
Decentralized storage = unstoppable, censorship-resistant, highly available, etc

TLDR For skeptics

Currently, most NFTs reference files hosted through centralized URLs or private gateways via IPFS.
If the minting platform or storage project goes out of business, then your NFT might be lost forever.
Aleph.im solves this. Decentralized storage is incentivized and designed for the long run. Cherry on top, it’s IPFS compatible.
More questions? Check out our NFT Backup FAQ at the end of this article

Guide: How to use our NFT backup dapp

Follow our step-by-step guide below.

Fund requirements

a. You need to hold ALEPH tokens in your wallet
b. The tokens are not “spent”. They only need to stay in your wallet to guarantee the relevant storage capacity.
c. As of writing (March 26th, 2021), 1 ALEPH stored in your wallet lets you store 3MB of data. So if you have 100 ALEPH, you can store up to 300MB.
d. If the tokens are moved from your wallet, your backed up NFTs might get garbage collected

Note: we are polishing the tokenomics incentives for this storage mechanism as there are many corner cases

Let’s get started!

Go to https://account.aleph.im/

First steps in using the NFT Backup DApp — https://account.aleph.im/

1/ Connect Your Wallet

2/ In The Left Column, Click On “NFT Storage” (or directly via https://account.aleph.im/#/nfts)

3/ In The Top Right, Click On “Backup NFT”

Copy the URL of the NFT to backup from your favorite NFT Marketplace

4/ On the NFT Marketplace, Copy The URL of the NFT you want to backup

Note: we currently support Rarible, Superare and Opensea (except the untransfered gasless mints)

5/ Paste the URL of the NFT you want to backup (c.f. previous step)

6/ Click on “Fetch Details”

Check the details fetched

7/ Review the fetched details and if it is correct, click on “Continue”

The final step of the NFT Backup process

8/ Double check the snapshot info and click on “Finish”

Voilà!

Your NFT is now fully decentralized and backed up!

Why back up an NFT?

As explained in a previous blog post, NFTs’ metadata are stored on a centralized service in most cases. If that centralized entity goes bust, gets hacked, decides to take down this content, or any other issue faced by traditional centralized entities… then your NFT metadata disappears, making your precious NFT instantly worthless. You can also read this, this and this.

“Traditional hosting companies struggle to offer long term storage solutions. If it goes out of business, you are out of luck. We are pioneers as we offer an easy way for users to ensure long term availability of their NFTs.” — Jonathan Schemoul aka Moshe Malawach, CEO at aleph.im

By backing up your NFT with our DApp, your NFT content gets saved on our cutting-edge decentralized storage system. It is incentivized, designed for the long run and supported by 47 nodes as of writing (and many more coming). The cherry on top, it’s IPFS compatible so the backup is also pinned 47 times on IPFS.

Our DApp “saves” a snapshot of an NFT data on the aleph.im network. This ensures that the NFT data is always accessible.

FAQ

FAQ Of Aleph.im NFT Backup App

What NFT marketplaces do you support?

As of writing (March 26th 2021), we support Rarible, Superare and Opensea (except the untransferred gasless mints).

Where do these NFT get backed up?

They get replicated on all the core channel nodes of our network and each of them has an IPFS node built-in. As of writing (March 27th 2021), our network has 47 nodes so that means the content is backed up on 47 nodes and pinned 47 times to IPFS.

I don’t know much about IPFS. Do you mind clarifying how IPFS works?

Read our IPFS 2min Article Explainer and you will effortlessly get it.

What if the NFT metadata is already on IPFS?

If the data being backed up is already on IPFS, we can pin it and infer new gateways (as long as we have an IPFS hash and path) if needed.

What if aleph.im goes bust?

If aleph.im goes bust, the network (and your stored data) will still run as the nodes powering the system are not owned by aleph.im

Google Drive is cheaper than aleph.im I believe. Right?

Nope. Right now you “pay” to store your data by holding tokens in your wallet. These tokens are NOT spent. You still own them. And actually, you can even earn more by staking at the same time.

You mean that I can use the same tokens to get storage capacity and for staking, so earn more tokens?

That’s correct. The same tokens can be used (i) to get storage capacity allowance and (ii) to earn more tokens.

You can either keep the earned tokens to get more storage capacity or sell them for profit.

What’s the current APY for staking ALEPH tokens?

As of writing (March 27th 2021), 16.51% APY.
It’s indicated at the top of our staking DApp.

How much does it cost to store on aleph.im storage?

You need to hold ALEPH tokens in your wallet. The tokens are not “spent”. They only need to stay in your wallet to guarantee the relevant storage capacity.
As of writing (March 27th 2021), 1 ALEPH stored in your wallet lets you store 3MB of data. So if you have 100 ALEPH, you can store up to 300MB.

What happens if I backed up some NFTs and then move the funds away from the wallet?

If the tokens are moved from your wallet, your backed-up NFTs might get garbage collected.
We are working on a long-term solution to make this less error-prone.

Where does the data get backed up?

Both on our nodes and IPFS.

If my NFT metadata is on IPFS, what does the NFT Backup App do?

It backs up the data to our nodes and our nodes pins it to IPFS too.

If my NFT metadata is on a private server, what does the NFT Backup App do?

The same. It backs up the data to our nodes and our nodes pins it to IPFS too.

If my NFT metadata is on a cloud server (i.e. AWS or Google Cloud), what does the NFT Backup App do?