Opacity Transcript — Galaxy Whitepaper Video AMA

The Opacity Galaxy Whitepaper is now available in Russian, Chinese, Korean and German, helping improve global accessibility to Opacity’s technology roadmap. Additionally, Opacity’s web platform will be translated into these languages following our v2.0 launch later this month!

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On June 4th, 2021, Jason Coppola, CEO of Opacity, and community manager Cesar held an AMA about Opacity’s plans for decentralization. Questions from both Opacity’s subreddit and the AltStreetBets subreddit were compiled in advance to be answered in the AMA.

Enjoy the written transcript of the AMA!

What will Opacity do better than its competitors like Storj, Sia and Filecoin?

First of all, it’s user-friendliness — This is key! I do not see any of our competitors having a good user-friendly interface. If anyone can point us to one — Great! I know there’s Filebase built on Sia, but that’s obviously separate from the Sia organization, and they are not privacy-focused, don’t use their own coin or token. It is just built as an interface — We do not see them as anything special compared to what Opacity is doing. They take credit card information, your name, everything attached to your account. Really, it is very similar to any standard storage provider account out there.

We are planning to integrate Sia into Opacity’s backend, and once we have it, then we’re equal, or greater, than what they’re already doing.

Another one, Filecoin: They took 220 million dollars in investments, and are definitely in the pocket of some bigwigs and probably beholden to them — so, who knows what path they’re going to take. It took them two years to get even something out the door, which I still do not understand exactly what they have done. If someone can explain to us what Filecoin does, then we can figure out how great Opacity can be compared to Filecoin. Right now, I go to their website, I do not see much there. They are also heavily invested in the mining space, and they are not making it simple to enter their network.

Storj is a different animal. Storj actually took the path to tackle AWS, doing more of the standard-like business infrastructure and want to be a replacement for AWS. That’s also a highly technical path, not for Opacity to focus on — it is not what we want to be doing. We are more consumer-focused first. We are going to have a mobile app, a user-friendly web application and then eventually, we will have some business collaboration.

If you look at in example Dropbox, they are more similar to that: They are consumer-focused, do company business-related things, but they are not AWS. Storj is more on the AWS front. Those are some of the differences I see.

Some competitors use mining, but you don’t — Why are they doing it?

One, it usually generates more tokens in the space, keeping up with the demand. There’s an incentive for miners to manage transactions and get paid for it. There are other ways to achieve this: we’re in the future thinking about staking. Opacity has a fixed quantity of 130 million tokens. We do not want to have a growing number of tokens over time, because that is inflationary, and not necessary. I do not see it as beneficial having billions of tokens like Siacoin, and then having a .02 $ price.

What about the governance of transactions? When we look at Opacity’s Galaxy whitepaper, we will create a governance space with a guardian system that will manage the network, understand where contracts are being applied between storage nodes and users. They will manage the flow of staking, if there is a need to reallocate files to a different node, they will reallocate the funds to be able to support that, too. The guardian support basically becomes a replacement for miners, in that regard where they are overseeing the network’s structure. They are making sure it is healthy and rerouting things as needed.

We will have servers, but we will not necessarily have constant transactions that need to be proofread by a miner. This also adds to a blockchain ledger, which we are not using. We will have a structure that creates somewhat of a ledger, we might even use a blockchain-type ledger, but either way, the guardian can help manage that flow and make sure that they’re sharing data in the network that needs to be shared. There’s a different approach to it.

We are designing a more modern 2.0 version of a blockchain rather than worrying about miners that are constantly managing every system in the world. I do not see that as scalable either.

Will 1 OPCT always be 64 GB? What if the maximum capacity is reached?

This will change based on the network supply and demand. The available storage will be based on pricing in the market. The dynamics are not worked out yet, so that is why we have a fixed peg for what we use in our system right now. But, we can charge anything. We can say, instead of 16 OPCT for one terabyte of available storage, it is now 50 OPCT, or 100 OPCT, or 2 OPCT. It is going to be dependent on different factors.

Users will have more options to choose from, whether they want a fast response storage solution for their files and sharing, or they do not need it fast and utilize Opacity as cold storage. If they need .05 TB versus 20 TB, there is a different scale. It might go down based on more storage needs, but go up depending on if they need more reliability, redundancy on other nodes, more resiliency.

Compare it to AWS, where you have different types of storage. For example, glacial storage, which is cold storage that you do not access very often. Or, you can have a hot storage — and they all have different pricing. We will have the same idea, where some people do not need to access certain files every day, and some people do, giving them different capabilities for those types of accounts.

If you have just some home photos and similar files, you probably do not need to have a lot of redundancy or a lot of fast response time. On the other side, if you are having a business that needs video or music streaming, you need real-time access, redundancy, storage dealing with constant requests — so the pricing will depend on those factors.

Can Opacity be used to host Non-fungible tokens (NFTs)?

I’m not an NFT expert, but I do know that there is something along the lines of a pointer used to get to an NFT. We can definitely be a pointer, because we are basically a storage file location, and you can just have a link to an NFT provide those links. Opacity can also host art for NFTs. This is not out of the question. NFTs were hot for a while, and they are starting to be hot in different ways: people put up artwork and music — that is great, it helps with copyright issues. Actually, this would tie into how we operate for Opacity, because there are copyright concerns when people share files with us. If they are NFTs, it takes out some of the questions that we need to deal with as an organization.

It is definitely possible for Opacity to host NFTs.

But not in the near term. I will throw this out there: This is another option for a third-party app to build on Opacity and say “Hey, there’s an NFT gallery you can use Opacity, and here’s the link”. NFTs are a good way to do that, too.

When Opacity is decentralized, can China still block your system for people in China, or will it be accessible always?

China controls their internet, they can create walls, creating a virtual border — and that is unfortunate for people living there. You can not get around those governments, but they do have back doors. I am sure some people have black market internet sites in China. They will be able to do whatever they do now, and they can also probably run their own nodes, if they need to be secretive about it, supplying data to whoever they are connecting with. We will not have much control over what governments do, but we will not be able to hurt or hinder it either way.

Can Opacity 2.0 and decentralization be used to store assets for websites? Will it be easy?

If we think about assets like images and even files that are available: then definitely. We will have a path, that’s the public sharing we are working on. I am sure, in the future, we can improve that, too.

Opacity is not designed for web hosting, but definitely links to files would be available directly. Individual files or images and or videos, or music; those will all be available.

We have not tested with it, but any file that is hosted should be able to be put into at least a position on a web page, or accessible as a link.

Are Brokers always intermediate between Origin/Guardian and storage node, or can this link be ignored in some cases?

The broker nodes are essential to dedicated bandwidth for the upload/download management of files so that they accept the shard and push them out. The guardian helps direct the traffic, for example, reassuring contracts between storage nodes X, Y, and Z, or dictate broker nodes to send data to a specific location. The same thing on retrieval: the guardian will point to the files and chunks on XYZ and ABC, and bring them back to the user. They are very important to route the traffic and dedicating the performance and overhead in the workload — Separate from the guardian system, which is performing the function for smart contracts, managing staking and user requests. And then the storage nodes which are hosting and holding the data, so it is a very important part of the picture.

Once the account logs in, it is authorized. The user would retrieve their list of files, and they can click on download. They would send the request to the broker node, which it does today already, and just retrieve it from X, Y, and Z. The broker node should know where to get it from because it will already be hosted in the account. There will no request to the guardian for that, unless the shard or file is not available for some reason.

Can you explain why you choose the percentages on payout to the different nodes? Are they set in stone?

• Origin Node: 20%
• Guardian Node: 5%
• Broker Node: 5%
• Storage Node: 70%

These numbers are placeholders; there needs to be research to be done here once we get the network up and running. They are designed to be good targets because a lot of the emphasis will be on storage nodes that are hosting the data. Without them, we can not have anything. Opacity can operate with us as the guardian, us as the origin, and we as the broker node like it does today. But, getting multiple storage nodes is really the essence of the decentralized network that we would like to create.

Incentivizing that especially in the beginning will be important for people, so they are able to host and earn from their systems. It might adjust over time, it might get more or less. If we would have too many storage nodes and we could reduce the payout because we don’t need as many. And if we maybe need more we will go up to 90% payout to storage nodes, encouraging people to join the system.

Why are Broker nodes needed? Can the Guardian not do the job of the Brokers? Shouldn’t this help with latency?

As far as downloads go, the latency would be reduced by dedicating the broker nodes completely to it. Because if a user requests a file, the broker node goes and gets the download path. There is no intermediary, there is no overhead, no workload on the system, no looking up anything: it is really immediate.

The upload, once the guardian approved certain storage nodes to be providers, is also offloaded to the broker nodes. They can actually just do the work of uploading the file. All this to reduce latency by having it as a dedicated system.

Are storage nodes performance hungry? Are you planning to make an easy installation for example with a docker image?

The answer to the easy installation question is definitely a “Yes”!

We will also create a command-line interface (CLI) tool so that anyone can easily access the system. We want to make it as accessible as possible, but we have not tested anything with Synology or any other NAS devices. We will test it because we have to see if it work or not. If it is widespread and there is a lot of people who want to use Synology or QNAP, we will make this option available. People for example ask why we are not supporting MAC with our desktop app. The answer is quite easy, not a lot of people are using MAC desktops. When I look at our website, current traffic is mostly coming from mobile, making it a priority. We always look at metrics for what people want and what they are using it for.

Yes, we would like to see it work on as many devices as possible, making the performance to be accessible by everybody. But the bottom line is: it probably will not be. You will need a good internet connection, stable uptimes — Who knows when I need to download my grandma’s photos, it might be two in the morning at your place — it has to be available and I need to get it fast. Not everyone has their system up 24/7. We know you would like to use your 200 gigabytes that are not used on your hard drive, and you want to help Opacity’s network — this is great in theory — but may not work for everybody. There will be minimal requirements we are going to test out. We will see what the internet latency needs to be, the speeds, and the device settings for memory and storage. You want to have a good amount of storage, that is for sure.

Required amount of OPCT to run a node and stake OPCT will be decided later. On what factors will the total amount be basend on?

Same idea. How much do we have to incentivize people to be healthy providers of the network? So that they are putting up some collateral that is important enough for them, that they do not feel like they can just shut it down, making it not a big deal — Versus, how much it would take to reallocate that reefs resource?

If node a goes down and they had three terabytes of data, we now have to spend time in the system to find better other storage nodes that can take that data, post it, get paid for it. So there is a transition period and overhead for that. Just like anything, nothing is free in life and there is a cost to that. We need to determine what that price point is. There might be some fluctuation because the token fluctuates in value. This would affect it as well. It is not going to be insignificant and not going to be in the tens of dollars. It will probably be in the four-figure or more range for someone to make sure that they are incentivized to uphold the network needs.

Will home-hosted nodes comes first and the other stuff (AWS) later?

Our first priority is obviously working on the Sia integration I talked about earlier. We are doing a proof-of-concept to set up a small app that can connect to the Sia network and make sure that we can upload and download files. That will be the first step. Once we have that in place, we can tie it into our existing accounts and in the backend. It will be seamless for the user. Some files will be on Sia, some on Opacity’s AWS. This will be step one.

Once we have proven that we can use multiple locations for file storage for access and retrieval, then we can open up to other storage nodes. This would be a limited subset at first. We want to make sure we can control the environment of who is involved, so we have no bad actors at the beginning. We want people dedicated to the system, making sure that it is bootstrapped and get it up and running. It will be an early trial of slowly expanding the storage node capabilities from AWS to Sia and eventually Opacity storage nodes that people in the community can provide — this will be incentivized heavily in the beginning.

Just like we are doing it with the liquidity pool on Uniswap, we want to give back to the people participating early on. It will be an application process first, in which the potential node provider giving details about their system, technical expertise, internet connection, and so on. Are you able to install packages on demand, or can you troubleshoot within your system as well — all these are factors for the application. So, you need a little bit of knowledge to be able to participate in the beginning, no matter where you will host the node.

Jason has a pretty agnostic view about plugging to other storage services like Storj and Sia. But what will the purpose of the OPCT token be then?

The OPCT token is used for payments of their services and our plans, which will never go away. It will also be the payment to storage nodes and anybody else in the network. In order to have an Opacity network at all, we are going to have an OPCT token. On top of that, I want developers to be developing their third-party apps and they can accept Opacity tokens for payments, too. This way, they can just pass that through into the network to pay for the service instead of doing conversions. If a third-party for their application charges for example 40 OPCT for a 2 TB account, while the price would be 32 OPCT tokens, they could keep the overhead to themselves.

Opacity will eventually also be used as a translator between Sia, Storj, and other solutions like Filecoin. You need to have just OPCT, and we will translate and payout to that network of your desire. So, that we are the layer of payment, reducing overhead on needing multiple storage coins for whatever you are trying to do.

Is someone building automatic service that automatically migrates files from Dropbox to Opacity Storage?

Not right now, no. I think that will be helpful especially after Opacity 2.0 and once we have our mobile application up. Then, we can think about telling people directly “Hey, if you are stuck on Google or Dropbox right now, here is a tool to easily switch over your account to Opacity.” Not yet, but it will be there in the long run.

Will there be minimal requirements to run a node? Have you tested it internally?

We have not tested those out yet. The first group, the first cohort of storage nodes will give us a lot of information based on that. We might have recommendations and a minimal range once we are opening up applications for storage nodes. This will also be part of the application process — people will tell us their specifications and we can figure out if they can participate in the network or not at the beginning. We will definitely need a variety, it will not be one thing — but we will have some recommendations coming out at the time when we are ready to get to that point.

What will happen to my files when, for example: a power outage takes out some machines with my files on it and they never come back online again?

There is not much to say in those situations: There needs to be a certain level of redundancy. Do not trust a single location with your files. You would not trust only AWS for your important files either, right? I would not. Do not trust Opacity 100% either, do not trust Amazon or Google 100% — You have to find a way to balance your risk tolerance. There will always be limitations. We will work with the best we can do to reduce those limitations, provide you with the option for redundancy, multiple shards so that there will be backups. We will have the capabilities in the system to manage redundancy.

Are there plans to allow workstations to mount their Opacity Drives similar to how one can access their OneDrive from their Windows File explorer?

I agree that it is a great option. However, getting to mobile is more important right now to me than desktop. Getting the desktop app will come either parallel or after the mobile application for Opacity 2.0. Either having a really good desktop app or having a network drive — those are all desktop-related work items that we would look at later after mobile.

Will Opacity co-exist in the decentralized network?

We will be part of the decentralized network — I do not see us going away from the ecosystem at all. We are also going to provide a lot of other services in the long term that I already have ideas for, developing our own application ecosystem. If you think about Google, they just started with a search engine, but then started to provide email, docs, the chrome browser, their own OS, and so on. We are going to be similar. We want Opacity to have multiple ways for users to use the decentralized system.

What will be the first marketing move after 2.0 release?

The marketing part is a big challenge for me. In the crypto space it is hard to say “this one thing is going to work” or “we have to invest in this”. Even getting on YouTube videos costs a lot of money and they are hit and miss. They might mention you once for a minute and then maybe you get another 50 subscribers or something. For me, guerrilla marketing is really good, because we are out there in the communities on Reddit, explaining and talking with people about Opacity and what it is about. Our community supports us there tremendously. Before we invest in ads, we want to wait until our mobile app is out, because then we can get people to install our mobile app and even try out a free plan, so they get familiar with Opacity. We are also going to build up our SEO. Those are all the traditional routes of basically making sure that Opacity shows up in search engines for people looking for cloud storage, file-sharing, or caring about their privacy. We want to start with different campaigns, targeting mobile users, or even targeting certain communities like photographers, video streamers, musicians, and more. So there will be a lot more tactical targeted pieces that may not be apparent for everybody, but we are already planning those. As well as to figure out who is the best demographic for using Opacity and how do we get in front of them.

What are the benefits we could tell to enterprises/individuals inciting them to use OPCT?

Like I mentioned earlier, we are consumer-orientated. We will release our new web app, mobile app, and desktop app. Collaboration, and a lot of the other things enterprises want, take a lot of effort to design and develop over time. We are not going to be there for a while. I want to create the application layer, the interfaces, and the access points first. Then, we will develop more of a system that is designed for enterprises.

For consumers: That is exactly what we are going to have. You will be able to point to the 2.0 site. You will be able to share.

Public sharing is important in the marketing space.

This comes back to the previous question. We are going to showcase a lot using public sharing. We will have our own videos, our own ads, own links that people can use, all hosted on Opacity, bringing them to a page on our website where people can learn about Opacity. That will be another way for us to get word-of-mouth marketing out there.

About Opacity

Founded in 2018, Opacity Storage is dedicated to online data privacy and security. Online data breaches continue to be a major consumer risk. Opacity is reducing this risk by removing the need to provide personal payment data and by decentralizing files stored online. For more information, visit opacity.io and follow @Opacity_Storage on Twitter.

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