Theta EdgeStore revealed in Alpha Preview Release

We are pleased to announce the release of the “Alpha Preview” version of the Theta EdgeStore. The EdgeStore network aims to be an append-only, content-addressing, decentralized key/value storage network for the permanent web. The EdgeStore 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).
• 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.
• Storage for training data sets for AI algorithms, such as autonomous driving, protein folding etc.

For the Alpha preview version, the EdgeStore is released as a standalone binary. As it gets more mature and stable, we will integrate it into the Theta Edge Node software. That will empower the Theta Edge Network to provide reliable decentralized storage and CDN services, and provide new ways for Edge Node operators to earn TFUEL for their contributions to Theta ecosystem dapps.

For Developers

Installation and Setup: Please install the EdgeStore software and set up the environment following this guide. The guide provides the instructions to download and install the precompiled Theta EdgeStore binary, as well as the steps to launch private EdgeStore networks on your local computer. Please note that the binary we currently provide is just an Alpha preview version with NO guarantees. We expect frequent future updates, some of which might NOT be backward compatible. Hence, for now it should NOT be used in a production environment. However, we encourage developers to play with it and provide feedback.

CLI Commands: You can interact with the EdgeStore network with CLI commands. Please check out this guide for more details.

API References: Alternatively, you can interact with the EdgeStore nodes via the APIs. For more details, please check out the EdgeStore API references, in particular, the RPC APIs and REST APIs.

Demos: We provide a few demos to showcase the capabilities of the EdgeStore network.

• Demo #1: A simple example demonstrating a single node private network for image storage and serving.
• Demo #2: A simple example showing a single node private network for mp4 video file storage and serving.
• Demo #3: An example demonstrating a multi-node private network for HLS video storage and serving.
• Demo #4: A full-fledged example showcasing how the EdgeStore network can serve as a permanent storage and a dCDN for Web Apps.

Video Tutorial: We have prepared a video walk-through for the installation/setup process and the demos in the enclosed links.

For convenience, the above demos are designed to run on a local computer. However, it is straightforward to set up a multi-node network over the Internet. To do that, simply modify the p2p.seeds config in the config.yaml file for the nodes. As an example, you can deploy a network consisting of three nodes, with the first node running in GCP, the second in AWS, and the third on your local computer. You would need to configure the firewall rules properly to allow inbound/outbound traffic on the p2p.port, so that the nodes can communicate with each other. Once the firewall rules are set up, you can run the EdgeStore nodes following the instructions above. The nodes should be able to connect to each other and form a unified storage and delivery network.