Definitely 2021 is a great year for investment in cryptocurrencies considering the amazing price increase that the vast majority of these projects have experienced in recent months, however not all that glitters is gold (or Bitcoin), many of these interesting digital currencies and technologies can result in a fraud or a great disappointment, all for not knowing what it is or get carried away by unconfirmed rumors.
In this opportunity we will learn more in depth about a project called Siacoin (SC), but first it is important to warn that what is expressed here does not represent any form of advice or recommendation on my part to invest in this cryptocurrency. Siacoin is a blockchain-based decentralized cloud storage network. Utilizing underutilized hard disk storage space, Sia Storage Platform has created a marketplace for data storage.
According to its developers the decentralized character of this platform developed as cloud storage provides a high range of reliability compared to its centralized peers, considering the fact that each user owns their private keys, therefore no external entity is able to breach the security of each block in the system. Also, the fact that each user dedicates part of their memory space on their devices to 'rent' reduces maintenance costs.
Another positive point in which Siacoin helps the community is that it can prevent piracy as well as censorship by establishing a tamper-proof platform for data storage. The Siacoin blockchain that is used to rent hard disk space is the content delivery (CDN) called Skynet, which allows developers to create decentralized applications (dApps) that integrate seamlessly with the native blockchain.
The Siacoin project was developed in 2014 by Nebulous Inc. before launching the Siacoin storage platform in 2015. Nebulous focuses its work on creating and distributing hardware and software blockchain solutions dedicated to providing a fully decentralized Internet. Nebulous is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, where it receives financial backing from major firms such as First Star Ventures, INBlockchain and Raptor Group who provided the $3.25 million figure with which they plan to improve scalability and adoption to the platform.
Siacoin works as a warehouse of data collected from rented devices from where it is divided into 30 pieces. Each of these pieces is encrypted and distributed through the native network. Decentralized data storage has many advantages over centralized systems. For example, with Siacoin's decentralized cloud storage platform, data is distributed securely, meaning that if a hard drive fails, the data remains safe and secure. In addition, Siacoin holders have their own private keys, giving them full control and ownership of their data on the blockchain.
Hosts are the heart of the Siacoin ecosystem and contribute to the core operations of the network. By providing any spare space on your computer's hard drive to Sia, you can become a host. Being a host means that you provide storage space for other users (tenants) to store their files in a decentralized and secure manner.
Hosts can decide the fees they charge for renting hard disk space. In addition, hosts in the Sia network are rewarded for their services on Siacoin. Siacoin can be used to buy storage space on the native blockchain or converted for an alternative cryptocurrency or fiat currency on various crypto exchanges. By uploading data of any type to the Sia blockchain, you automatically become a tenant. Once uploaded, the data is simultaneously encrypted and distributed across the SC nodes' storage network.
If you rent space on the storage network, you pay the fee in Siacoins. Or, if you are hosting hard disk space to rent data storage, you will also receive payment in Siacoins. In addition, investors in the project will also receive their share of the revenue from the growth of the network in Siacoins.
As of today the SC token holds a price of US$ 0.01902 (0.0000003306 BTC), with a Market Capitalization of $933,755,794. Also the total SC in circulation is 49.10B SC, which represents the total units available.
