Decentralized Storage Over The Years: How It Has Changed and How Companies Are Shaping Their Way towards It?

Sarvvid
7 min readDec 11, 2021

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There are a lot of platforms on which data can be stored, but few of these systems offer full data privacy, and they are often centralized. This is because they need to share data with third-parties such as courts or governments so they can function properly. These third-party entities literally have access to every single piece of information making your digital life vulnerable and hackable.

Fortunately, we can do away with this practice by storing data on decentralized networks — just like the internet — which allow people to keep their own information safe and uncensored.

It has been a revolutionary concept for all

Decentralized data storage is a revolutionary concept in the field of software development. It uses the same underlying technology as Bitcoin which allows users to store their files in a way that cannot be controlled by any central authority. This means that you alone are in charge of your data, nobody can censor or remove it without your permission. Once you decide what information you want to share with others, it is there for good. The need for an intermediary comes down to zero, and this means that no one but you can access your data. It’s like putting buildings on top of buildings on top of buildings — every new layer makes the whole system more secure and robust.

Why do we need decentralized data storage?

Data storage has always been centralized due to the need for the system to function properly. As data becomes more important, it is no longer simply held on an unencrypted hard drive, but it is scattered across the web in various places maintained by different organizations.

Whenever you send a message, post a status update or upload a file, these companies are getting their hands on your information. The risk of hackers or governments gaining access to this type of data is not small. Think of WikiLeaks and the National Security Agency (NSA), which stole millions of documents from Sony Pictures Entertainment and made them publicly available through the Internet with some technical skill (and heavy media coverage).

Even if a centralized company is honest and uses best practices, you’re still always at risk of someone gaining access to your data. There are countless examples of companies abusing this power, including the few that have been found guilty of it. In 2016, over 1 million social media accounts were hacked from the retail giant Target , and then private photos from those accounts were published online.

How many companies have showed interest in decentralized management?

In 2013, millions of private photos from iCloud were leaked by an employee who hacked his way into Apple’s cloud storage system. Although Apple was quick to act in both cases by locking down affected accounts and making them inaccessible, they still didn’t prevent all hacks.

One of the main reasons that people are not using decentralized data storage that much is that it is still in its early stages. The current market is still dominated by centralized solutions. However, according to a recent study , by 2020, nearly half of all internet traffic will be decentralized. At the same time, data privacy concerns are growing to the point where there are now more regulations on how companies must make sure their systems are secure . This means that more people will start storing their files on decentralized networks in order to ensure their privacy.

Some of the most popular decentralized networks include:

– Bitcoin — Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency developed and held electronically. As its name suggest, Bitcoin is a digital currency. It allows you to send and receive money across the globe with minimal fees. Bitcoin also offers anonymity for both senders and receivers , which can come in handy when trying to protect sensitive information such as financial records or health data . This is because Bitcoin transactions are made with public and private keys , so no one but the person who owns the private key can access their funds.

– Ethereum — Ethereum is similar to Bitcoin but it goes much further than that. Ethereum is a cryptocurrency and a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third party interference. This means that Ethereum services can be used to manage not only money but also domain names, voting and crowdfunding.

– IPFS — IPFS is a distributed file system that aims to connect all computing devices with the same system of files. This technology allows you to keep data online even when the original servers go offline . While the IPFS protocol has been around for many years , there has recently been a surge in projects based on this technology. It offers some major improvements , such as faster downloads and better search capabilities.

Over the years : Table Showing How People Started Being Accepting:

A decentralized storage platform is one where the data is spread out versus centralized, with no central server. It includes systems like MaidSafe and Storj. This is because of the value decentralization provides to these platforms in terms of security, privacy, and security.

Decentralized startups are on the rise as more people start to use them for their data. The main reason for this is because, in a centralized system such as Amazon Web Services, the only way to secure the data is through encryption which leaves software vulnerable to key theft.

A decentralized storage platform does not have that problem because no one person has access to the whole data. The closest someone can come is to own a small portion of it. This means that no one can decrypt and sell your secrets and no one can steal your keys. These platforms use peer-to-peer networks, where there is no entity in control of your data except you and people you trust.

Statistics showing growth of decentralized storage

MaidSafe, for example, is an open source platform that offers decentralized data storage. MaidSafe was founded in 2004 and has run on Linux since its inception. The goal of the company is to decentralize the Internet with encrypted data storage. The MaidSafe Foundation was established in 2014 and allows people to store data on its network without fear of losing it.

Another type of distributed data storage is Storj, which is a decentralized cloud storage platform with no central server. It was implemented in June 2015 after two years in development. Storj is the first decentralized, end-to-end encrypted cloud storage that uses bitcoin to transfer data and payments. Farmers, as they are called on this platform, provide storage services on their computers and are paid in cryptocurrency for it.

Here is a growth for storage systems judged in a metric of 5 points.

In the case of these platforms, as opposed to a centralized server or cloud service, encryption is performed by users of the network. This means that they cannot lose their data no matter what happens to them. Geographical location is also a serious advantage because there is no one country that can be forced to give up the data if a court order demands it. The chances of a government being able to shut down a network entirely are very slim unless the Internet itself comes under attack from another source.

Charts mentioning how decentralization have been used by multiple sectors now

Benefits of choosing a decentralized data storage:

Figures mentioning why everyone needs to have a decentralized storage system
In 2013 Satoshi Nakamoto, the founder of bitcoin, had a market capitalization of about 1 billion dollars. Today that figure would be more than 10 billion dollars with bitcoin dominance at only 61%.

Crypto currency market capitalization has been on a constant rise from 2005 up to now. In 2020 cryptocurrency is expected to have a total value of 800 billion dollars and by 2025 it is estimated to be over one trillion dollars.

Around in the year of 2020, around 35% of the people chose to go decentralized. The decentralized systems’ cryptocurrencies namely bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general gained popularity in the 2014 to 2016 period, when they grew by 8500%. Since then, the decentralized systems’ cryptocurrencies have grown by nearly 2000% from April 2017 to April 2018.

Trends in the blockchain and cryptocurrency market:
According to a report published by Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofAML), if we compare between 2016 and 2017, there is a significant increase in the market capitalization of different cryptocurrencies. For instance, bitcoin dominance has fallen from 87% to 60%, while ethereum has jumped from 5% to 16%. Further, BofAML predicts that on average daily transaction volume of cryptocurrency will reach $465 billion by 2025.

Major development of Decentralization:
In the early stages, the blockchain was mostly associated with its use in the financial sector. However, since then, blockchain technology has been increasingly explored in various sectors such as healthcare, retail and public services.

Conclusion

The team at Sarvvid is developing a peer-to-peer cloud storage network which will eliminate any third party interference. They are building the most secure, scalable, and cost effective cloud in the world by transforming an unused computing resource into something of value. The application will be open sourced and free for anyone to use and enjoy.

The application is user-friendly and offers free storage up to 20GB for the first 35000 users, after which it is priced at INR2 per GB until 5TB of storage, making it suitable for individual customers. However, SARVVID offers packages with more reasonable prices!

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Sarvvid

Sarvvid is India's first decentralized cloud storage company, provides the most secure storage system for your data. learn more at https://sarvvid-ai.com/