Storj – Decentralized Cloud Storage on the Blockchain
Some days ago I published an introduction to Blockchain and what it could be used for (Blockchain, the next big thing?). Yet there are already a lot of startups building interesting products with this kind of technology.
What is Storj?
Storj is one of them. It introduces itself as “Blockchain-based, end-to-end encrypted, distributed object storage, where only you have access to your data”. So what does it? It is a service where users can rent and lend free disk space on their computers and servers. This makes it possible to offer a cloud storage service to store all kinds of files, like Dropbox does.
But not only private users could store their holiday pictures on it. Storj also provides APIs and services that enable using it as cloud storage for all kinds of applications. In the past it already announced to partner with Heroku and Microsoft Azure. The idea behind it is that applications deployed on these cloud platforms could use Storj disk space under the hood. It fits very well into the cloud platform ecosystem as also the payment model does. Storage is payed per GB per month ($0.015) and bandwith costs $0.05 per GB downloaded.
Integration means Adaption
Storj just announced its new integration with FileZilla. This makes it possible to use Storj storage like any (S)FTP-Server and brings it to a potential of 15 million monthly users using the popular FileZilla FTP client.
Many Blockchain startups are building up momentum these days while having problems to be integrated into real world scenarios. Storj did a perfect job on establishing this integration. It is simple, cheap and opens up Storj for millions of users. This makes it a perfect show case for reaping the low hanging fruits in the industry. It shows that Blockchain and ICO/token sale startups are actually starting to deliver. This puts all similar projects into good light and increases hope that other projects start delivering real adaption use cases, too.
Try it out
Using Storj is very simple.
There you go. For the first 12 months you will have 25GB free for testing. Testing is important now as Storj is still in early stage of development. If you want to support them, give them feedback in their community chat or on Twitter.
What does it have to do with Blockchain?
Cloud storage is provided in a decentralized model as the storage is not provided by central servers of a company. Instead simple users or professional farmers could rent their free disk space and earn money with it. This makes the system and storage fail safe and distributed.
For quite a while Storj had its SJCX token based on counterparty in circulating supply on some exchanges. During the last months they accomplished a pretty successful token sale with the goal to sell their brand new STORJ token. STORJ is a Ethereum based (ERC20) token and from now on implements the payment model of Storj so it has its own currency for the ecosystem.
To get rid of the old circulating token, there is an ongoing migration where the old token can be exchanged 1:1 to the new STORJ token. When this is done, all payments in the system will be based on the new currency.
Conclusion
In parallel to tons of petty initial coin offering happening, some good picks start to deliver. Storj slowly turns out to become one of them as it works towards mass adaption by offering simple integration possibilities. There is actually happening something in the cryptocurrency and Blockchain world which promotes the whole technical and economical area behind it.
We’re looking forward to see more similar steps of Storj, its competitors and projects from the other areas.