Here's the situation today...
A lot of data has accumulated on your own hard drive and it is time to consider where to store it. Some use traditional cloud services, others buy external hard drives and store all their files there.
What does Siacoin (Sia)
Siacoin (or Sia for short) is a distributed platform that provides cloud storage services and competes with the centralized clouds DropBox, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft.
With Sia, any user can provide free storage space to others or, conversely, store their files in encrypted storage. All contracts, proof of content retention, and transactions are verified using a public block chain.
All services on the network are paid for in Siacoin crypto currency, and transaction reliability is ensured through intelligent contracts and storage proofs.
Any Siacoin owner can rent storage from Sia hosts. This is done through intelligent contracts stored in the Sia block chain. A smart contract transfers payment to the host only after they have stored the file for a certain period of time. If the host loses the file, he does not receive payment.
The distributed nature of the Sia network allows you to optimize the response time, throughput, reliability, and security within it. The distributed nature of Sia allows anyone to rent a storage location for data, lowering the input threshold and overall cost of data storage.
The storage ecosystem
The Sia platform consists of service providers (hosts) and customers (users). Hosts provide users with free space on their devices and are paid for in Siacoin.
The ecosystem is designed to be flexible, and its work is largely determined by the free market. Hosts can set their own prices, advertise the level of reliability of their devices and offer compensation if storage problems occur and files are lost. In addition, they can refuse to provide space if something in the nature of their data does not suit them - for example, if it is ethically questionable, if it affects a person's interests, or if it is proposed to store illegal content.
A number of measures have also been taken to protect the interests of customers. They can exchange copies of their data between several providers to ensure the security of the files and the possibility of restoring them in the event of a failure. If the host has lost the client file or simply refuses to share it, they can simply request a copy from another host's storage. In addition, if the situation is similar, the parties can agree on the fines to be paid by the host.
In addition, the client can pay the provider for the reliability of the storage, which should encourage the hosts to listen to the users' needs, provide fast communication, and so on.
Why is Sia better than his competitors?
Sia offers a number of advantages over traditional cloud storage services:
- Confidentiality: All data on the Sia network is stored in encrypted form. If the host doesn't have a private key, it can't access it, which means the client always has complete control over all its materials. In the traditional model, the cloud storage company has full access to your data.
- Availability: Sia has a flexible pricing model - there is no single price tag, and the client can choose the appropriate option. For example, storing 1TB of data through Sia can cost as little as $2 per month, or $23 per month at Amazon.
- Security: All data is encrypted as it travels through the decentralized Sia network, which means that users of this network are not afraid of the threats typical of centralized systems. In addition, Sia offers the option of redundant storage - client files are spread across multiple hosts, and the failure of one of these hosts has no impact on data availability.
Where is Siacoin crypto currency traded?
You can only buy Siacoin on crypto currency exchanges against Bitcoins or Ethereum. In particular, the currency is traded on:
- Poloniex
- Bittrex
- Yunbi
- HitBTC
- Kraken
- Binance
The market capitalization of the token is currently more than 160 million US dollars. The cost of the Siacoin crypto currency currently fluctuates around USD 0.003.
Where to store tokens.
The most secure option for storing SC tokens is to use the official Sia UI wallet. To create a Siacoin wallet, find the Wallet button on the left side of the Wallet tab, then select Create New Wallet.
The application will generate a key to access your wallet that looks like a sequence of words. It must be kept in a safe place. After the wallet is launched, it will be synchronized with the network for some time. Once the process is complete, you can receive and send coins.
A less reliable option is to store tokens in the balance of crypto-currency exchange, as in this case you entrust your coins to third-party platforms. And cases of hackers breaking into the wallets of such sites and stealing money appear in the news from time to time.
Sia Blockchain Perspectives.
With Siacoin you can access all the key features of the platform. These coins are used to sign contracts to store files, rewards and fines for hosts. As the Sia network continues to grow, the demand for these coins will continue to increase, so you can safely add this coin to your portfolio for the long term. It must pay for itself many times over.
With one small restriction: Choose a purchase point yourself. A coin can still sag before a growing trend is resumed. The value of Siacoin grows with the number of files stored in a decentralized cloud storage.
In the future, Sia will become one of the main services for decentralized cloud storage on the Internet. We will be able to watch movies and listen to music, view photos directly from Sia, and have access to all important files and documents at any time without worrying about their security. The company plans to displace the pedestal and possibly replace giants like the existing cloud storage services Amazon, MicrosoftOneDrive, Mega, DropBox, etc...
In addition, Sia offers the ability to create third-party applications on its platform. A prototype application has already been created that can replace Bittorent in the future.
The developers of the Sia platform see it as an extensive network of small data centers, which together represent the fastest, cheapest and most secure platform for storing and exchanging data. Today, the cloud storage market is a multi-billion dollar industry. To enter this market and take its place, you need your own large data centers, a loyal customer base that is building a reputation and competing with companies like Amazon. Google, Microsoft and so on. In other words, it's simply impossible to do this unless you have a few extra billion dollars in the nest.
