Web3 Storage — Massive Growth and Capital Gains with Arweave, Filecoin and Stratos
Abstract
World storage system demand has progressed from remote storage to instant cloud storage, and now blockchain decentralized storage which we shall call Web3 storage — which allows users to archive, retrieve and maintain their own data and not anyone else. This advantage sets the foundation for the exponential growth for capital investment in this space.
We divide Web3 storage into network basis, P2P basis and coordination platform based on its system architecture. The network basis verifies storage service on the network. P2P storage provides a cheap and pay-as-you-go storage service. Coordination platform is more like a cheap storage plan that results from a combination between Web2 and Web3 platforms.
Storage in network basis conquers the market share of crypto ecosystem storage. Layer 1s like Solana validators, NFTs, Metaverse protocols rely on instant storage with interoperability bridges like Solar bridge from Sol to AR. P2P storage aims to become the Amazon Web Services (AWS) of Web3. Coordination platforms stand as the middleman in the storage market.
Arweave is the only protocol that has figured out the tokenomics for permanent storage with a one-time payment. Storage fee is paid and stored in an endowment pool to pay storage providers for a service time. The costs for storage provider are forecast to decrease according to a mathematical projection. Filecoin provides a P2P storage service with service expiry or renewal fees. Stratos, as decentralized computing network utilizes on-chain storage providers to store data while bridged to IPFS and Arweave for network acceleration.
All three — storage in network basis, P2P basis, and coordination platform will form a blockchain segment and acquire market share in the future enterprise storage market, due to growing concerns over privacy breaches and the blockchain’s reputation for security, as some users seek to move away from centralized storage providers. More protocols will also be built directly on storage chains.
1. Introduction
Global storage system demand has grown from a remote storage to cloud instant storage, and now blockchain decentralized storage. According to IDC, the global storage data volume will grow from 33 zetabytes in 2018 to 175 zetabytes in 2025. A bit of fundamentals and math here, the global 109 TB will be stored on all available storage resources across the globe. Where 1 TB is basically the storage size of a consumer hard disk drive. 175 zetabytes in 2025 will require 350 professionally constructed data centers. That cost will also elevate the security and level of database sharding in data processing groups where processing units might result in common database issues such as overheating and high amount power consumption. The cost of security and high power consumption will fuel the trend towards decentralized storage.
In Web2 storage, data sovereignty is taken away as the custodian aspect of Web2 storage concerns security and privacy issues. In 2018, a hacker attack on Facebook exposed the personal information of nearly 50 million users. The breach was the largest in the company’s 14-year history. In 2005, a hacker was able to access potentially 40 million credit card details by infiltrating the network of a company that processed payment data for MasterCard International Inc. Security seems to be a burden to bear for both Web2 users and the centralized entities providing storage services.
Decentralized Web3 storage is a prerequisite to blockchain ledger security — as the ledger data size is held up to validator nodes in a proof of stake system, miners in a proof of work system and smart contract platform, for technologies such as DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) systems. In proof of stake systems, light client highly depends on a validator for sending queries and authenticating the transaction data with reliance on delegated or nominated validators.
Therefore, decentralized storage is of vital necessity.
2. What is Web3 storage? What does it do?
Web3 means that users have the freedom to read, write and own their content. In Web3 storage, this means users can archive, retrieve and maintain their own content.
Web3 storage protocols / chains can be categorized into network-based storage, P2P based storage and coordination platforms. Storage on a network basis means data is stored inside the storage resources and managed, while the storage resources themselves are owned by the protocol/ chains, unlike Peer-to-Peer. For example, in Arweave, storage resources are managed in a random probability by blockweave recall blocks that the Arweave chain uses as random proof of access to randomly retrieve the stored data from a bunch of networked resources. In Stratos network, storage resources are managed and routed by a network of meta service nodes using proof of authority. After routing the storage resources inside the PoA network, storage nodes are instructed by meta service nodes and store data. In network owned storage, clients do not know which storage resources are storing the parts of their data and storage resources are managed by the chain network.
In P2P storage, clients are able to select which storage resources are storing their data. Like Filecoin, clients (peer 1) are using IPFS to store their data by selecting one or multiple storage nodes (peer 2). Although storage nodes perform proof of work to prove that they are storing the data from clients on the chain, the relationship between the clients and the storage nodes still function via a P2P relationship.
In a coordination platform, clients have access to available storage plans at a price. Meanwhile, the storage platform will outsource the storage tasks to available resources to get the most effective storage plans, i.e. the cheapest solution with the largest storage. For example, ColdStack is a decentralized cloud aggregator, which provides the aggregation of Decentralized Cloud Storage Platforms or Decentralized Storage Networks (DSNs) such as Filecoin, Sia, Arweave and Storj. However, Coldstack itself does not have on-chain data storage solutions. Stratos is an example of sorts of the hybrid between being a network owned storage and a coordination platform. Stratos use their meta service layer to manage and route available storage resources to the clients. The storage resource nodes can use their extra storage space as resources or outsource it to external chains like Arweave and protocols like IPFS.
What problems does Web3 storage solve?
Web 3 storage allows users the ability to own their storage, own their decisions to retrieve and maintain their content through a decentralized and distributed system secured by blockchain hashed encryptions. This would avoid Web2’s central points of failure — vulnerability to hacks, while protecting privacy and utilizing data without jeopardizing equates to ownership of their data. As a result, decentralized storage will act as a base for more utilities and web3 adoptions, much like decentralized computing and analytics. The Web3 storage sphere will also benefit crypto ecosystems based on storage, like NFT (such as JPEG) storage, decentralized exchange data, web3 app deployment, NFT data and media sharing, supply chain data management, web3 social network protocol data, social media NFT, decentralized dead man’s switch, decentralized world wide web, news NFT and music NFTs. In the future, web3 storage may also solve issues associated with long term liability and assets, such as like house deeds, dow payments and acquisition contracts, probably in a permanent way.
For the time being, Web3 storage faces challenges such as utility in pricing, convenience and interoperability. Where pricing is concerned, prices for permanent storage like Arweave is far higher than traditional storage methods. It costs US$6.64 for users to store permanently on Arweave, but a conventional 25GB USB device costs only US$10. Where convenience is concerned, users need to use different cryptocurrencies to pay for storage, which hinders Web3 storage’s widespread adoption currently. Users would need to buy the cryptocurrency before using the storage, instead of paying for it via traditional bank transfers or VISA — payment methods that are more widely-used worldwide. With respect to interoperability, Web3 storage solutions still have room to grow. Web3 storage currently requires professionals like web developers to read and use. For example, Arweave permaweb is http compatible, but has delays and drawbacks storing JavaScript or videos while stored in permaweb.
In the Web3 storage space, three projects with three technologies are analyzed below, namely blockweave technology with Arweave, IPFS with Filecoin and coordination platform with Stratos. The first two dominate marketcap-wise and are the largest layer 1 Web3 storage blockchain projects, laying claim to US$3.6b and US$944m in marketcap respectively at time of writing, with Stratos being a protocol with growth potential. The following comparisons will analyze each technology, its qualities such as storage capabilities, tokenomics and developer activities, as well as their pros and cons.
3. Comparisons of 3 kinds of web 3 storage technology
Arweave, Filecoin and Stratos use different technologies to perform decentralized storage. Each of the technologies possess pros and cons.
3.1 Blockweave
AR, as a representable project using blockweave, provides a permanent solution for the “permaweb” and permanent storage by one payment for permanent storage, using blockweave and a random recall block, in the consensus model of SPoRA (Succinct Random Proofs of Access). Specifically, Proof of Access is a kind of proof of work, where PoA (proof of access) is the proof to incorporate, or basically link up data from a randomly chosen block on the blockweave network. Specifics on blockweave consensus will be explained in the section of Detailed Project Comparison.
Storage components are broken by pieces to be stored on blockweaves. The storage economic incentive is governed by a pool of liquidity paid by users, in which the liquidity pool is called the storage endowment and pays the storage maintainers for a long period of time, encouraging decentralized economic rewards and sustainable storage providers. This will be explained in the “Tokenomics to incentivize the three technologies” section.
3.2 P2P — IPFS
IPFS, namely InterPlanetary File System, is a P2P network for storing and sharing data, in a distributed and decentralized way, where data is sharded in pieces and stored in decentralized computer networks, where each computer network is a combination of individual PCs. IPFS is composed of 2 technological structures to archive and retrieve data, including content addressing identified and DAG for linking contents. Instead of identifying the storage location to know where storage providers are archiving information, content identifiers define the data stored using content. Data privacy is protected in a decentralized manner. Instead of using the original blockchain design like bitcoin does, IPFS uses DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) to store data into multiple resources, similar to BitTorrent. When downloading or retrieving data, IPFS will immediately fetch the data from multiple sources, including the nodes where the content is downloaded, to foster retrieval speed. Many cryptocurrency projects are using IPFS, including Filecoin, Aleph and Crust network bridge.
3.3 Coordination Platform
The third technology category in Web3 storage is coordination platform. A pure coordination platform mostly outsources storage power or resources to an external environment, such as blockchain or even back to Web2 storage for handy and cheap storage plans. A hybrid coordination storage platform consists of the blockchain-owned network storage, or the blockchain will outsource storage resources to other blockchains or protocols. The data storage will be verified based on consensus algorithms such as proof of work and proof of stake. A simple explanation would be combining traditional data storage methods with blockchain utilization.
3.4 Miner hardware requirements according to technology
Filecoin possesses the highest mining node hardware requirements, at a total reference cost of US$5,548; Arweave, with the lowest requirements, requires US$1,750 worth of mining hardware. Stratos has the lowest costs for reference, but it is still in test net environment.
3.5 Detailed project comparisons — which tech is better?
3.5.1 What is special about AR, FIL and STOS?
Arweave allows for one-time payment for permanent storage. Its Succinct Proofs of Random Access (SPoRA), originally PoA, mostly allows users to link up to their stored data via the actions of miners who connect randomly to the previous block for data retrieval. However, due to large data incorporated in blockchain, it would be hard for many miners to synchronize after downloading a large data set. As a result, blockweave uses, firstly, a blockhash list and, secondly, a list of active wallets, to alleviate blockchain data size issues. Using a blockhash list, miners can easily access all of the previous blockhashes and verify the old block easily using all the hashes provided when first synchronizing to the entire blockweave mining system. Shortly after verifying old blocks, nodes join the active wallet lists to mine new blocks for storage without connecting the last transaction block to wait for transactions to take place. This opportunity to join storage blockweave mining, without downloading the entire blockchain and waiting for the last transaction block, allows miners to verify that the transaction is signed by the client and instantly store on the blockweave structure. How do miners link to one another if they individually sign into the block based on blockhash lists and active wallet addresses? There is a recall block which is published and hashed in the current transaction block. Miners can verify and mine the new block while new miners can verify the previous blocks randomly using the recall block. In Succinct Random Proofs of Access, miners work on proving the access to previous data at a random probability. Since miners do not know which recall block or previous block is the target of data retrieval, Arweave incentivizes miners to store more on the entire Arweave blockchain to increase their probability of performing data retrieval with the relevant recall block in the original data set stored in the target block. Miners are then incentivized to do data retrieval with an increased probability of recalling the data that has a higher probability of increasing their block rewards. Such utilization of blockweave, blockhash list and SPoRA allows for a one payment, permanent storage service.
Filecoin uses a consensus technology through proof of storage using proof of spacetime and replication in IPFS. Throughout the entire P2P storage industry, storage providers have faced fault fees, sector penalties and termination fees if they fail to do proof of spacetime. Three fees encountered by storage providers include storage fee during the start of storage, retrieval fee (off-chain) block reward (PoW mining), in addition to the earlier-mentioned slashed fees. Recently, the Filecoin plus incentive program (in development) had a governance proposal to provide a social trust layer for clients with a “datacap”, so that the miners serving the clients, who will have a higher datacap level, have a higher probability of earning block rewards. But this would also lead to centralization of clients as clients will gather to increase their probability of obtaining a higher scored datacap entity in order to earn more block rewards.
Stratos aims to become the hub for decentralized storage, decentralized database and decentralized computation, the three layers of the blockchain protocol — namely value layer, meta service layer and resource layer. The value layer, using proof of stake consensus algorithms, as the base layer for security, calculates workload, conducts digital payments and verifies storage content. Meanwhile, the meta service layer, using proof of authority algorithms, audits, conducts indexing, routes, matches and manages storage resources and network statistics. In resource layer, using PoT (proof of traffic) as such proof of work algorithms, work on the storage layer, networking and computing, much like a server, where the PoT mechanism separates network power between those to store and those to verify, thereby increasing network capacities for storage. PoT also rewards miners with block rewards that relate to its throughput. PoT can check the network storage availability by checking up the traffic, instead of proof of storage that focuses mainly on checking the storage capacity of the whole network. PoT can check the bandwidth of the whole network, a function other storage solutions might lack. Therefore, PoT directly tracks the utility level of the entire network for data transferring in and out. Stratos applications will also include network acceleration for video distribution, NFT platforms, oracle system, social media, edge computing and IoT.
3.5.2 Compare performance — throughput and pricing
Network throughput and latency: Arweave miners store and retrieve using SPoRA and are incentivized to store as much proportion as they can for block rewards. The bandwidth is decided by a single type of consensus algorithm across data networking, storage and processing. While Arweave lays claim to an average of 5000 TPS, low latencies could be expected since its network processes transactions faster than Fantom and Avalanche chains. For Filecoin, the IPFS network transactions per second and latencies are unknown, although there are multiple resources claming that using Filecoin results in delays of 8 to 48 hours for storage and retrieval and 3 hours for 32 GiB (gigibytes). Considering its proof of storage and spacetime, Arweave that does not require miners to always synchronize to the entire blockchain network at its SPoRA consensus. Thus, Filecoin network speed and throughput is uncertain. Stratos is still in development, and its latency data has not been published yet. However, given that the storage network requires the storage process to go through PoA, PoT and PoS consensus, a comparatively higher latency is to be expected, considering Arweave’s single layer of consensus algorithm. Therefore, in network throughput and latency, Arweave emerges as the winner.
Storage period and pricing: The three storage projects provide different timeframes for storage. For Arweave, the network charges a one-time payment for permanent storage.
Filecoin’s prices start at $0.00000031733 USD for 1 GB/year — — a very low price. However, users may face the probability of miners going offline and out of service, as the protocol is not one of permanent storage. Users also have to pay for storage contract renewal and their files will not be able to be retrieved if renewal fees are not paid.
Stratos has not yet revealed their storage service model but has mentioned they use other blockchain networks, like Arweave and IPFS, for network acceleration should storage resources need to be outsourced.
3.5.3 Tokenomics to incentivize the three technologies
Arweave has an advantage over Filecoin and Stratos with respect to tokenomics. This is due to Arweave’s storage endowment and having a relatively larger initial circulating supply.
Arweave has an initial supply of 55 million and maximum total supply of 66 million. Token value has the advantage of fixed supply and increasing demand. Also, due to the 83.3% initial availability of the total supply, Arweave will likely experience little inflation to go.
A bit of tokenomics that makes Arweave different from other chains/protocols is the storage endowment. Instead of storage fees paid directly to Arweave miners, the storage fee is locked in an endowment, then paid to miners who could share the network bandwidth at the highest probability of maintaining the blockweaves with recall block. Therefore, the endowment will gradually be used to pay miners to store and retrieve data continuously, with the assumption that storage costs will go down in the coming 200 years:
The AR token has the following utilities:
1. AR paid by users for storage
2. AR used by layer 2 for AR’s ecosystem, for example Bundlr networks and layer 7 applications like Music NFT
3. Interchain bridge storage for defending 51% of attacks from other side of the bridge
4. 4. Combined solution with PoH of Solana to reverse hacker attacks
5. Developer to sync on chain (roughly 15 hours to become a full node for eth now)
6. Graphic processing storage
7. Release economy or capital locked from hardware quality for validators to storage providers, store data on-chain than storing in hard drives
8. Store immutable data
9. All necessary data for Web3 applications, directly on chain storage, such as data networking, archiving and transfer
Arweave combined with storage endowment has the advantage of storing permanent data, incentivizing permanent and continuous storage and retrieval by miners. The disadvantage of Arweave would be its storage costs, as these are significantly higher than Filecoin based on the above analysis of Filecom.. However, its guarantee of storage permanence also explains its pricing. Arweave’s tokenomics also stands out as the comparatively less locked supply of tokens after launch means it is less subject to volatility and aggressiveness on the part of miners to obtain incentives.
Filecoin has a maximum token supply of 2 billion while initially the circulating supply is 14,747,034, only 0.7% of the total supply. More than 34% of inflation has occurred on circulating supply. Attention should be paid to Filecoin’s inflation rates.
To sum up Filecoin’s key attributes, Filecoin has the advantage of peer-to-peer storage and a low cost. It also has a burning mechanism to repurchase tokens from the market. On the other hand, Filecoin’s circulating supply inflation rate is an area of concern and its lack of permanent storage results in its market position being in direct competition with Web2 storage technologies.
The FIL token has the following utilities:
1. Miner collateral: — Initial Pledge Collateral -Block Reward as Collateral -Storage Provider Deal Collateral
2. Fund raising
3. Retrieval fee
4. Storage fee
5. Governance (not yet launched)
6. Burning fee (repurchase mechanism similar to EIP1559)
The Stratos protocol possesses fair tokenomics. It has a max supply of 100 million and 8.125 million tokens as initial supply. The total supply inflation rate stood at 15 % for the first 9 months and 10.8% for the 13rd month to the 24th month. The STOS token fulfils the functions of both staking and blockrewards for PoT.
To sum up Stratos’ tokenomics, STOS token has great utility potential. Despite the lack of information due to it being in early-stage development, STOS tokens will likely experience a fair inflation rate and sufficiently attractive incentive program.
3.5.4 Do developers use the tech to solve problems?
Based on the figures below, Arweave has greater potential to experience an exponential growth rate compared to the other chains. The on-chain transaction and blockweave storage size has grown exponentially. This symbolizes more on chain development. However, Filecoin’s burn rate has a flat increase. When Filecoin is paid for a transaction, a part of the Filecoin is burned. Therefore, a slow burn rate reflects a slower growth rate, which also results in less incentives for developers to develop on Filecoin and get paid with FIL tokens as proof of work.
In this section, on-chain activities and developer’s activities like protocols building using the three technologies are analyzed below:
Arweave
Arweave’s on-chain stats are listed below:
Arweave also has the following bridges to foster AR utilities and adoptions:
1 Solar bridge to Solana
2 Matic bridge
3 Near bridge(development)
4 Polkadot bridge (development)
5 Arbitrum bridge
6 Cardano bridge (applied in cardano sound)
7 Eth and ar bridge by Verto bridge
8 Evermore ethereum NFT bridge (reveal owner instantly)
9 Arbitrum bridge (development)
To analyze the developer’s activities, the numbers and diversities of protocols building on top of Arweave chain can be analyzed:
1 ArDrive — permanent Dropbox
2 Redstone — DeFi data streams
3 Verto — decentralized exchange
4 ArGo — web app deployment service
5 Koii — NFT and media sharing platform
6 FQRweave — supply chain management
7 Decent.land -permaweb-based social network protocol
8 EverFinance- A layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum with virtually gasless transactions using Arweave
9 Ecclesia- A social media platform focused on free speech
10 ArConnect- Simple, secure Arweave wallet management tool
11 Verto.Exchange- Leading profit-sharing token exchange
12 Sarcophagus- A decentralised dead man’s switch
13 ArDrive- Offering permanent, immutable file storage
14 Evermore- A powerful permaweb-based file storage tool
15 ArweaveNews- A community-run news service for the Arweave ecosystem
16 The Koi Protocol- A new framework for decentralized permaweb services
17 Pianity- Connecting artists, fans, and buyers by building permanent music NFTs
To sum up Arweave’s developer activities, a diverse range of applications including 17 protocols and 9 blockchain bridges are using blockweaves to solve existing problems and serving as a permanent storage solution layer for other L1 chains. Its on-chain transaction and weave storage size show that more storage is used up on Arweave’ blockweave network.
Filecoin
Filecoin’s on-chain stats are listed below:
Since users can choose off-chain transaction to reward miners during storage retrieval, the following burn tokens can be viewed to evaluate on chain activities:
Filecoin is burning their tokens based on their EIP-1559, but a slowed growth rate of burned tokens implies a slowed transactions growth rate.
Filecoin has the following interoperability properties:
1. Matic bridge
2. Chainlink
Filecoin is also promoting its ability to be used on other projects, without the need to build on top of them:
1 Audius — music streaming NFT platform
2 2 currents.fm -music creator
3 inflow music — music artist community
4 Huddle — video conferencing
5 Metaverse AI — distributed identities
6 Blockbets — game monetization
7 Mona — 3D galary viewing NFT monetization
8 Gala -gamers community
In summary, Filecoin has several protocols using their layer as a storage service. However, its comparatively slower burn rate indicates that its transaction volume is hitting a wall, which is of concern.
Stratos
Stratos has the advantage of sourcing other blockchains and resources for its storage layer that could accelerate its storage and computing network throughput. However, Stratos is still in the early stages of development, so its on-chain activities and developer confidence cannot be assessed for the time being. Also, the network throughput and bandwidth would be the main concern if the large blockchain data set has to pass through 3 layers of consensus algorithm, mainly PoS, PoA and PoT, while PoW might not be able to run in parallel with PoS consensus simultaneously.
Stratos has the potential to become a decentralized data storage and computing protocol. It uses its network storage resources while outsourcing to other chains for network acceleration to achieve more storage capacity and processing power. If Stratos succeeds in the decentralized storage and computing solutions market, it will become a decentralized hub for computing and processing with storage.
4. Deeper insights into Web3 storage technologies
Web 3 technologies are mainly composed of sub sectors like storage on network basis, on P2P basis and on coordination platforms. Each sub sector has room to grow. Web3 proclaims the notion that users can read, store, write and own their storage for their own purposes. This reason, solely, could exponentially increase level of adoptions and attract capital investment to empower Web3 storage developments.
Storage on a network basis provides a new horizon for Web3 storage services on blockchains, protocols and validators. Data is stored on a decentralized network and distributed. The storage resources are managed and verified on the network. Validators, miners and the protocols also prevent centralization, single points of failure and help protect privacy. These advantages overwhelm Web2 storage services. In the Opacity Galaxy Web storage network, the origin nodes manage user payments. Where guardian nodes receive payment process information from origin nodes, guardians distribute the original data into shards and check the availability of storage resources, Guardians also guard the credibility of the storage network because storage providers are each storing pieces of the original data sets. The brokers receive instructions from Guardians and route data to shards of data providers. The whole data sets are distributed, stored and verified by on-chain mining nodes and validators. Likewise, the TEE on substrate inside Crust network does guarantee proof of stake and meaningful proof of work. Data is stored and retrieved by miners as merchants while the validators verify the blocks on the blockchain network as PoS system. In Stratos network, the meta service node routes and matches storage demand by proof of authority to another layer with available storage resources by proof of traffic mining. Meanwhile, Arweave stores data in a permanent way by randomly requesting access from the miners to retrieve the data. No one on the network really knows which blocks contain the full set of the storage data during retrieval by random proof of access. Blockweave is also the only Web3 permanent storage solution. It successfully modelled a solution to provide permanent storage at low cost by having a storage endowment liquidity pool and random proof of access to incentivize miners to maintain stored data to protect privacy and single point of failure.
On top, storage on a network basis is certainly a solution to the problems surrounding privacy and centralization, as well as storing blockchain data. Crust Network’s TEE is built on substrate, where Parachains could bridge to other chain by XCM as Polkadot’s vision as a Web3 infrastructure. Also, Arweave’s 9 cross chain bridges easily enable storage of NFTs, including picture formats, videos, music files, graphics, and even provides a dead man’s switch service. NFT is enjoying huge demand for the time being. Although NFT transaction data is verified on-chain, most of the NFT info is not. Malicious actors can easily put up a jpeg file and own it through another on chain transaction a long term after the original transaction. Apart from that, Arweave is also recommended by the Solana chain to store validators’ histories to prevent malicious activities by solar bridge. Data is permanently stored while validators are able to offload once they have accumulated 2 days of validator histories. As direct blockchain data storage is enabled, Web3 storage on network basis also empowers adoption of decentralized computing, AI, analytics, data exchange and economy, integration to physical hardware. Thus, Web3 storage on a network basis enables blockchain data storage, with Arweave being the only one permanent storage solution for high-net-worth individuals.
One hybrid Web3 solution is peer-to-peer storage. A key difference between P2P and network basis storage is P2P storage ultimately depends on the storage resources of the other one peer or peers. P2P -based solutions rely much less on the blockchain network except consensus. Filecoin’s retrieval fees can be paid off-chain and double payment is incentivized for storing the single source of data, which seems relatively unnecessary from a user point of view. On the other hand, BitTorrent bridges traditional storage torrent technology to the protocol with relying on Tron’s network security consensus. Skynet is incentivized by Siacoin for large P2P payment system to avoid centralization of data storage. Storj network also relies on encryption without a major blockchain consensus, similar to a Web2 technology but as a decentralized protocol. P2P Web3 storage thus aims at being a decentralized AWS for easy and convenient pay-as-you-go storage services, targeted at markets seeking retail-like Web2 storage, or those transition from Web2 to Web3 services.
Coordination platform enables outsourcing with the possibility of on-chain storage. ColdStack and Internxt act as a storage aggregator to provide effective storage solutions by breaking down storage data into different storage packages to make up a cheap overall price. Stratos uses its outsource function for network acceleration, bridged to Arweave and IPFS for more storage power. Its proof of traffic enables its own on-chain storage and computing power. This effectively separates the storage and computing power. Its processing power can thus be effectively distributed for edge computing. Coordination platform opens the door to industrial 3.0 for decentralized computing and processing power, with a far-reaching horizon.
5. Conclusions and Predictions
In conclusion, Web3 Storage on a network basis, on a P2P basis and as a coordination platform enables blockchain data networking, a cheap and effective solution and an industrial 4.0 future. Storage on a network basis verifies and stores data on-chain. P2P blockchain storage provides a cheap Web3 solution that is similar to pay-as-you-go storage services offered by the likes of Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform. Coordination platform coordinates and packages cheap and effective storage plans.
NFT and metaverse will throw capital into storage market. As NFT and metaverse protocols are all over the hype of the market, the image, jpeg, video, animations, avatar and creative content demands a lot on blockchain storage at network basis. The market will thrive when too much data is stored on areas like off-chain or Web2 servers that ultimately Web3 users will move to Web 3 storage network to protect their NFT ownership, privacy and direct link from storage to NFT marketplace.
Web3 permanent storage market will thrive with high-net-worth individuals’ uptake. Vital information, like laws, directives, legal contracts, real estate and land ownership proof, identities, birth certificates, votes and decisions by political parties, would require a permanent storage solution like Arweave.
The Web3 P2P storage market will experience exponential growth when the blockchain market realizes the importance of storing and editing their data on their ownership. The time when Web2 users realize the convenience of Web3 storage with cheap and fast P2P solutions should be addressed. When the two aforementioned factors come into pace, Web3 storage protocol tokens will be bought to leave only a few of net supply.
Coordination platform will continue to act as a market middleman on the bridge between Web2 and Web 3. Coordination platform combined with other network basis storage becomes a decentralized computing hub with network accelerations.
The behaviors and confidence of developers will signal market realization of this space. Investors will be able to notice this through on-chain data and developer activities.
About Huobi Research Institute
Huobi Blockchain Application Research Institute (referred to as “Huobi Research Institute”) was established in April 2016. Since March 2018, it has been committed to comprehensively expanding the research and exploration of various fields of blockchain. As the research object, the research goal is to accelerate the research and development of blockchain technology, promote the application of blockchain industry, and promote the ecological optimization of the blockchain industry. The main research content includes industry trends, technology paths, application innovations in the blockchain field, Model exploration, etc. Based on the principles of public welfare, rigor and innovation, Huobi Research Institute will carry out extensive and in-depth cooperation with governments, enterprises, universities and other institutions through various forms to build a research platform covering the complete industrial chain of the blockchain. Industry professionals provide a solid theoretical basis and trend judgments to promote the healthy and sustainable development of the entire blockchain industry.
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