Theta EdgeStore decentralized storage released in Alpha version
Building on the release of the EdgeStore demo and Theta Video API Edge Ingestors, we’re excited to now share the alpha release of Theta EdgeStore, a crucial part of the 2023 Theta roadmap. Theta EdgeStore, a new component of the Theta Edge Node software run by 10s of thousands of users around the globe, acts as an append-only, content-addressing, decentralized key/value storage network for the permanent web.
While Theta Edge Nodes already support decentralized streaming and encoding/transcoding, with the addition of decentralized storage the Edge Node will offer a complete end-to-end decentralized service for video streaming, as well as any other type of file transfer or streaming. The updated Theta roadmap for 2023 and beyond will be released soon, detailing the rollout for EdgeStore and ultimately the production version that can be used at scale by enterprises around the world.
The EdgeStore library implements a unique technique called “flexible sharding” which can be viewed as an probabilistic extension of the Chord protocol for distributed hash tables (DHT). An EdgeStore node not only stores the permanent data shards assigned to it, but also caches the popular contents locally. Therefore, in addition to providing storage capability, the network also acts as a decentralized content delivery network (dCDN) for any type of files. We foresee that a wide array of decentralized applications can be built on top of the Theta EdgeStore, including but is not limited to the following:
- Permanent storage for the digital assets of NFTs (e.g. images, videos)
- Storage for training data sets for AI algorithms, such as autonomous driving, protein folding etc.
- Data availability service for layer 2 scaling solutions such as rollups
- dCDN for video, music, game patches, software updates, etc.
- Storage backend for general web3 DApps, e.g. blogging sites, chat apps, decentralized app stores, decentralized Github repositories, etc.
- Storage for Metaverse digital assets, e.g. the 3D models of the characters and buildings in the virtual reality worlds.
You can try out the alpha version here, uploading and retrieving files from Theta Edge Nodes. Similar to Edge Node ingestors service, during this test phase storage is facilitated by a group of Theta Edge Nodes currently run by Theta Labs in cloud instances. After testing to confirm the service is working efficiently, the service will switch to run on Theta users’ public Edge Nodes, allowing Edge Node operators more opportunities to earn TFUEL by providing storage services to the Edge Network. NOTE: since this is an alpha release, the Edge Nodes storage files may be reset or cleared for testing purposes. Please do not treat this version as permanent storage for any critical/secure data files.
You can also access the EdgeStore alpha to upload and retrieve files via API with this documentation. Stay tuned for further updates and how you can get involved as a Theta Developer!
