Is Filecoin Dominating? A Review of Seven Distributed Storage Projects

This article is from Bibi News, original title: "Eight Players in the Distributed Storage Race, Who Did You Go All In On?", Author: Xiao Niu.

"FIL breaks $150, how long can the price increase last?"

"Bitcoin's performance is mediocre, Filecoin's opportunity has arrived!"

"STORJ has been rising too fiercely these days!"

A quick glance at social media and community discussions reveals these conversations about distributed storage projects.

Recently, there have been continuous positive news in the distributed storage sector, starting with the reduction of FIL circulation increase from April 16, followed by Coinbase listing STORJ. Led by the industry leader Filecoin, other distributed storage project tokens have seen varying degrees of price increases.

The competition in the distributed storage sector is intensifying. Currently, Filecoin, as the leader in the distributed storage sector, has a market capitalization that has surpassed $10 billion, rising to 13th place. Other distributed storage projects like Arweave and Storj also have their unique advantages.

This article from Bibi News will detail the other seven competitors to Filecoin: Arweave, Sia, Storj, Bluzelle, Crust, Filecash, and Filestar, examining the highlights and opportunities these projects possess.

Arweave

The initial goal of Arweave was to provide permanent data storage, including web pages, emails, photos, posts, and more. If you're worried that important data might disappear over time, store it in Arweave.

Arweave has three major highlights in its design to ensure network stability and order.

First is the consensus mechanism. Arweave uses a PoA (Proof of Access) consensus mechanism. Miners need to store random old blocks to produce new blocks, and the randomness means miners cannot predict which blocks will be designated.

Miners with more storage space can accumulate as many blocks as possible to increase their chances of block production. Miners with less storage space can prioritize storing blocks with fewer copies.

Fewer copies mean fewer miners can store that block, so once that block becomes a random block, smaller miners storing these blocks can also have a chance to produce blocks.

The design of PoA has two main benefits.

First, miners earn block rewards by storing old block data, continuously replicating data, which reduces the probability of old block data being overlooked, helping to achieve permanent data storage.

Second, the rules are simple and friendly. As long as you store a random block, you qualify for rewards, regardless of whether you are a large or small miner.

In February of this year, Arweave completed the SPoRA (Succinct Proof of Random Access) upgrade, which focuses on continuously retrieving past data blocks to select candidate blocks in an unpredictable manner, allowing miners to access storage continuously.

The SPoRA upgrade has increased the number of data copies in the Arweave network by 100 to 1000 times, improving the efficiency of network data storage.

Second, Arweave has established a review mechanism for uploaded transaction data. Network maintainers can use various methods to review data. Once a data storage provider believes that a piece of data is unsuitable for storage, they can refrain from retrieving materials from the network for various reasons.

Third, Arweave has established a Profit Sharing Community (PSC) and issues Profit Sharing Tokens (PST). When transactions occur on the Arweave network, tips charged in Arweave's native token AR are sent to PST token holders, with the distribution amount determined by the proportion of PST token holdings.

In the profit-sharing community, developers issue specific tasks through rewards in PST tokens, contributors take on tasks, and upon completion, they receive PST tokens representing shares and rights to profits from that application. PST tokens serve as a bridge between developers and contributors, encouraging more contributors to assist in the development and maintenance of the network.

Sia

On July 9, 2015, Sia Tech published its first article on Medium, introducing what Sia is. The article mentioned that Sia is a decentralized cloud storage platform that distributes a large number of trustless, anonymous hosts globally, allowing users to choose nodes to upload files. The platform splits the file into multiple parts, storing them across different hosts. Since the hosts are trustless and anonymous, the privacy of the files is ensured.

In a market dominated by centralized storage platforms like Amazon and Google, Sia proposed the concept of a decentralized cloud storage platform. Compared to centralized storage platforms, decentralized storage platforms have advantages such as lower costs for content upload and distribution, the ability to bypass centralized censorship, and enhanced privacy protection.

There are two roles in the file storage process: the uploader and the hosting host. If you want to upload a file, you can rent storage space and pay fees using Sia's native token SC. If your host has available storage space, it can become a hosting host. Both parties sign a contract, with the renter depositing a certain amount of SC, which is dynamically allocated to the host each time a file is uploaded or downloaded.

The uploader pays fees once at the end of each month, without needing to pay each time they use the service. When the SC balance is low, the renter receives a warning and can recharge at that time. When the contract ends, any unused SC fees will be returned to the uploader's account, and the hosting host earns revenue. If the SC funds are exhausted, files cannot be uploaded until a new contract is signed.

The Sia blockchain plays a role in storing the contracts between the uploader and the hosting host, establishing a reward and penalty mechanism for hosting hosts. The obligation of the hosting host is to provide proof of the contract; submission earns rewards, while loss incurs penalties.

Storj

The goal of the decentralized cloud storage platform Storj is very clear; from the beginning, it aimed to compete with Amazon S3, targeting all users of Amazon S3 storage services. Compared to Amazon S3, Storj can provide the same services while being cheaper, decentralized, and privacy-protecting.

In the Storj ecosystem, there are mainly three types of roles: user end, nodes, and satellites. Satellites are cluster servers that connect the user end and nodes. When the user end needs to upload files, the satellite helps find the fastest node for uploading and records the expenditures and revenues of both the user end and nodes, although the presence of cluster servers reduces Storj's level of decentralization.

Compared to Filecoin, Storj has the following advantages:

1. Low hardware threshold. Storj does not require mining with AMD graphics card mining machines; it only needs to meet the following requirements: 500GB hard drive, 2TB monthly bandwidth, at least 5MB/S upload speed, and at least 25MB/S download speed.

2. Since it targets Amazon S3, the upload and download speeds of file data are relatively stable, making it more suitable for commercial use. Additionally, Storj is less susceptible to DDoS attacks.

An article in the first-class cabin pointed out that even if individual nodes are attacked, it does not affect the retrieval of user data unless more than 51 nodes out of the 80 nodes storing that user's data are attacked simultaneously, making data retrieval impossible and irreparable. The difficulty is much greater than attacking a single Filecoin miner node.

3. Storj has short retrieval and deletion times for files, with low costs.

Since Storj is built on the Ethereum chain, it is constrained by the state of the Ethereum network, and the STORJ token is not tightly integrated with its business, which somewhat limits its development.

In summary, comparing Filecoin and Storj, from the perspective of practical application scenarios, Storj is more suitable for commercial use. In terms of revenue, Filecoin's token economic model is more robust, allowing miners to earn greater profits.

Bluzelle

Bluzelle is a Web3 decentralized database provider.

Currently, there is significant potential for data storage applications. After finishing a game or listening to a song, data will be temporarily stored in a database. What happens if the data is not saved? The game can only be played again, and the song can only be replayed, leading to a decline in experience.

If game companies collaborate with Bluzelle, Bluzelle's decentralized data storage network can timely save user game data, with network nodes distributed globally, allowing users to synchronize game data regardless of their location.

If Bluzelle is combined with privacy computing public chains, multimedia companies can provide matching services to users based on their media usage habits without infringing on user privacy data.

In addition to databases, Bluzelle also has advanced oracles. Bluzelle's oracle data is highly reliable, fetching data every five minutes. When prices are abnormal, the oracle can issue alerts to prevent flash loan attacks.

Currently, Bluzelle has launched its mainnet and integrated with Polkadot, becoming a project in the Polkadot ecosystem. Bluzelle has already reached cooperation in data storage with Phala Network, StaFi, Cere Network, and is expected to collaborate with more Polkadot ecosystem projects in the future, becoming an important Web3 database.

Crust Network

Crust Network is a parachain of Polkadot, aimed at providing decentralized cloud storage services.

Crust Network's special design mainly has two points: MPoW (Meaningful Proof of Work) and GPoS (Guaranteed Proof of Stake).

MPoW effectively addresses the reporting issue of node workloads, characterized by transparency, fairness, efficiency, and development potential. Simply put, the storage mechanism is simple and transparent, miner workloads are proportional to rewards, storage space is efficiently utilized, and TEE development has unlimited potential.

Under the GPoS consensus mechanism, the Crust Network ecosystem has produced four roles: validators, candidates, guarantors, and users.

Validators are nodes that package and generate blocks in the network, maintaining the entire blockchain network, requiring storage assets as collateral, and needing to be online in real-time, similar to miners in the Filecoin network.

Candidates are nodes competing to become validators but ultimately do not qualify, also needing to store assets as collateral and be online in real-time. However, the role of candidates is not fixed, and they have the opportunity to become validators.

Guarantors are accounts that provide guarantees for any one or more nodes in the network, earning guarantee income by providing guarantees for nodes.

Users are the main body of storage demand, purchasing storage services by paying CRU and other tokens of the Crust Network, utilizing network storage space.

The Polkadot ecosystem projects cover a wide range of fields, and cooperation between public chains based on Substrate can add new attributes to both sides. For example, through cooperation with Phala Network, Crust Network can store privacy data, aiding in privacy protection. As an important storage public chain in the Polkadot ecosystem, Crust Network is expected to become a crucial part of Web3 infrastructure development.

Filecash

Filecash is a fork project of Filecoin, making several modifications to Filecoin's economic model to lower the mining threshold.

Bibi News previously mentioned Filecash in an article five months ago titled “Filecoin Faces 'Shutdown Wave', Opportunity for Fork Projects?”. The article mentioned that Filecash uses the sha512 algorithm, allowing Intel graphics card mining machines to participate in mining, while idle AMD graphics card mining machines can also participate. In contrast, Filecoin uses the sha256 algorithm, which does not allow Intel graphics card mining machines to mine.

Additionally, Filecash's sector size is packaged at 4GB, much smaller than Filecoin's packaged sectors of 32GB/64GB. The reduction in sector size helps improve packaging speed and enhances sector space utilization.

Filecash's latest roadmap indicates plans to deploy on Layer 2. Filecash community coordinator Marco stated during an AMA that 30% of the total 2 billion FIC tokens are reserved for Layer 2 incentives, meaning that Layer 2 application layers can enable FIC tokens to participate in DeFi, compatible with public chains like BSC and Heco.

Filestar

Similar to Filecash, Filestar adjusts Filecoin's economic model to lower the entry threshold for miners and enhance network efficiency.

Filestar's white paper mentions seven points of difference from Filecoin, among which the most notable are the elimination of upfront collateral, the use of recursive zero-knowledge proof technology, and a random sampling mechanism.

Upfront collateral was a key factor restricting miners in the early stages of the Filecoin mainnet, as many miners invested significant funds in purchasing mining machines and operations, leaving only a small amount of FIL balance. In this context, each sector required prior FIL collateral, which was indeed a considerable pressure for miners. The elimination of upfront collateral in Filestar undoubtedly alleviates this pressure, helping to improve miners' mining efficiency.

Recursive zero-knowledge proof technology has already been successfully implemented in the Mina Protocol. For example, once proof#5 is verified as correct, it indicates that the previous proof#4 and proof#3 are also correct, and users do not need to re-verify proof#4 and proof#3. This reduces the amount of data included in the submitted proof, enhancing network TPS and scalability.

Filestar employs a random sampling mechanism for space-time proofs, meaning miners do not need to submit space-time proofs multiple times a day, and through random sampling, miners cannot predict whether they will be sampled, ensuring fairness in the sampling mechanism and preventing miner fraud.

Recently, Filestar announced its PoS roadmap, indicating that a testnet will be released in mid-April, followed by fork testing. The mainnet fork is expected to take effect in May, activating PoS. After PoS goes live, STAR holders can stake STAR to earn rewards, incentivizing token holders to actively participate in network construction.

Conclusion

The key to distributed storage projects lies in solving real-world storage problems. Simply put, it is about the supply and demand relationship of storage: one party has data and files that need to be stored, while the other has the capability to provide storage services. The issues present in centralized storage can be addressed by distributed storage, but currently, distributed storage still faces challenges such as data redundancy, file data quality issues, and legal-related problems that need to be resolved.

Each distributed storage project has its own application domain, and differentiated competition, along with the creation of rich practical scenarios, is the correct path for the development of the distributed storage sector. Filecoin is the leader in distributed storage, but it is not the only solution to storage problems.