Over the past decade over 5 billion people had their data exposed by hackers in breaches all across the United States. The cause of this outrageous number is simply that the exposed data is stored on centralized servers. This also means that the data, documents, photos, videos, and sensitive information you store in Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud, and AWS (Amazon Web Services) are not safe from the skillful fingers of a computer hacker.
What the world needs is a decentralized Internet, and of course decentralized storage to keep our data safe and protected. This is exactly what SiaPrime offers. Built on top of the Sia network, SiaPrime helps businesses protect and host their data. Their platform could have prevented the major data breaches that happened to Equifax, Yahoo, Ashley Madison, Hospitals, Government agencies, large corporations, and a slew of other targeted entities.
Remember when hackers said they were going to leak the final episode for HBO’s Game of Thrones in 2017? Well if HBO had stored their data and videos on SiaPrime’s network of host nodes around the globe that wouldn’t have been an issue. What exactly is a network of host nodes you might ask. It’s you and I, your next door neighbor, and random people all around the world who have a computer turned on 24/7, with a large hard drive that has unused space. Those hard drives host the data for businesses. Here’s mine:
What exactly is Decentralized Storage?
The simple answer is: a form of data storage that does not take place on one main server or computer system, instead the data is stored on a network of computers owned by citizens of the world. One of the main problems decentralized storage solves, is data breaches and hacks.
Ashley Madison was hacked and the data that was exposed ruined marriages, Equifax exposed almost half of Americans identities, Yahoo lost billions of emails and personal information to hackers, celebrity photos have been leaked, hospital records held for ransom, and the list goes on. If the data were split up into discrete pieces using erasure coding, encrypted and then stored on a network of decentralized hosts, hackers would have found themselves hitting a brick wall. The reason being, if a hacker somehow broke through the firewall of a host computer, all they would find is encrypted data that is worthless to them without the other thousand pieces.
Imagine you had a Tesla sports car and you wanted to keep it safe from car thieves. But you don’t have a rocket to shoot it into space like Elon Musk at Space X did. Instead, you have a mechanic take the car apart into a thousand pieces. Then your mechanic randomly ships out those pieces to people around the world to hold those parts for you. When the people receive the parts, they don’t know what they are for because your mechanic removed any identifying descriptions or details from the part. So as far as they know they are holding either a piece of metal, plastic or other material. How can someone steal your car now?
The car is not in one piece, and even if they steal a piece from one of the thousand people around the world, that part is useless without the other parts. This is the power of decentralization. Taking the power out of the hands of one central entity and putting it into the hands of the people. Storage is the most important piece of decentralization because it will protect our data and our identities.
Why is SiaPrime best fit to provide decentralized storage to the masses?
Well some of the things I look at when deciding if I want to support a cryptocurrency startup is whether or not they have a working product, a capable team, a supportive community, and organic traction that is poised to grow tremendously over the next 12 to 24 months. SiaPrime has this and much more.
The founders of SiaPrime plan on working directly with business customers by building an Amazon S3 compatible cloud storage network. Although the process of getting set up with a decentralized network can be quite technical, most of the barrier to entry is mitigated by being done on the backend. This removes the stigma that implementing a new technology has to be difficult for a business. Also, they are not alone. They are backed by the Sia protocol that has been around for years and continuously puts out new development updates and continues to grow their network. By supporting Sia’s parent company Nebulous, SiaPrime has solidified its place in the Sia family of products that are sure to become the first choice for decentralized storage in the years to come.
Something I’ve noticed over the years while researching and investing in cryptocurrency startups is the amount of mistakes they have made. I think that has been an advantage to the Prime team, and has helped them avoid repeating those same mistakes. Remember, Bitcoin has only been out for roughly ten years and cryptocurrency is still a fairly new technology along with Blockchain. As the market saw in 2017, the rush of new investors that entered the space and ultimately lost all their money is a testament to how new (and volatile) this market is. This has given the team a chance to evaluate what companies have done right, and what they have done wrong. Their philosophies, culture and company goals are transparent, friendly, and perfectly positioned in the market.
Every tech startup needs a solid foundation
This means a team of great entrepreneurs, a fantastic product whether hardware or software, customers, traction, and a group of community supporters, and of course finally, revenue and profit. So far it seems they are hitting most of these checkmarks with more on the way. The best part is, they launched on October 30, 2018 and have already built and established quite a bit in such a short amount of time.
We are now in the next phase of the digital revolution where cryptocurrency, Blockchain technology, decentralization, artificial intelligence, and new technologies are going to start surfacing more frequently. It’s only a matter of time before these new technologies gain critical mass in the market and become part of everyday life.
The question remains, do you want to be a part of it?
The best way to get involved is to join the community on Discord, read the Reddit threads, and talk to folks. You can also join the Bitcointalk to leave a comment, join the Telegram, and follow on Twitter and Facebook of course.
Then feel free to rent or host storage, or become a miner to help process the transactions on the network. All three things can be done through the SiaPrime wallet. Of course if you run into any issues, the community and team is always there to answer your questions. Mining SiaPrime coins is actually pretty fun, because you turn your mining rig (ASIC computer) on and let it run on its own. You can buy an S11 or B52 to mine your own coins by asking someone on the Discord like I did. Here’s mine:
Let me know what you think of SiaPrime in the comments and feel free to share this post to tell everybody about the future of decentralized storage!
Feel free to watch a video about SiaPrime here: