David Vorick, co-founder and developer of Siacoin, speaks about the decentralized cloud storage platform Sia at MIT Bitcoin Expo 2016.
David introduces the blockchain-based platform, and compares and contrast Sia with other competitors like Storj.
From Sia’s White paper:
“Sia is a decentralized cloud storage platform that intends to compete with existing storage solutions, at both the P2P and enterprise level. Instead of renting storage from a centralized provider, peers on Sia rent storage from each other. Sia itself stores only the storage contracts formed between parties, defining the terms of their arrangement. A blockchain, similar to Bitcoin, is used for this purpose.
By forming a contract, a storage provider (also known as a host) agrees to store a client’s data, and to periodically submit proof of their continued storage until the contract expires. The host is compensated for every proof they submit, and penalized for missing a proof. Since these proofs are publicly verifiable (and are publicly available in the blockchain), network consensus can be used to automatically enforce storage contracts. Importantly, this means that clients do not need to personally verify storage proofs; they can simply upload their file and let the network do the rest.
We acknowledge that storing data on a single untrusted host guarantees little in the way of availability, bandwidth, or general quality of service. Instead, we recommend storing data redundantly across multiple hosts. In particular, the use of erasure codes can enable high availability without excessive redundancy.”
