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In the past two months, problems with online storage have frequently occurred. Among the top ten online storages with monthly active users according to third-party statistics, six have shut down or adjusted their services, including Huawei Cloud Disk, Tencent WeCloud, Sina WeDisk, 115 Cloud Disk, Kingsoft QuickDisk, and Network Hard Drive. As users' demand for cloud storage increases, issues such as operation suspension, data security, and personal privacy need to be addressed. For ordinary users with large storage needs, the solutions to the shutdown of online disks are nothing more than spending money to use paid online disks, buying more hard drives for offline storage, and another decentralized cloud storage solution based on blockchain. Sia is a decentralized cloud storage platform that uses blockchain technology. Compared with traditional cloud storage methods, the decentralized Sia system can make cloud storage safer, faster, and lower cost. Through erasure coding, encryption, and blockchain, Sia not only has traditional cloud storage functions, but also solves the security and privacy issues of traditional cloud storage, ensuring that the resources uploaded by users are controlled by themselves, rather than any cloud storage service provider; the host storing the files cannot read the files stored, and the files can be kept intact even in the case of a large-scale system failure. Sia is designed so that servers that provide storage space can receive Siacoin (cloud storage currency) - a built-in token of the Sia system, which encourages more idle space to become storage space providers. Sia adopts a pow model, and the way Siacoin is issued is to provide rewards to miners to ensure the long-term stability of the Sia decentralized network. According to IDC's 2013 report, in the next four years, the global cloud service market will grow to $44.2 billion, of which the market share of cloud storage will increase from 9% to 14%, and its size will be close to $6.2 billion. The storage market is the fastest growing cloud computing service. According to a third-party report, the total amount of global data in 2015 was about 8.6ZB, and it is expected to be around 12ZB in 2016 and exceed 44ZB by 2020, which is equivalent to an average of more than 5,500GB of data per person in the world. The huge market demand makes investors full of expectations for Sia. So far, Siacoin has been listed on several exchanges such as Poloniex, ShapeShift, and Bitsquare. Lao Mao, COO of Yunbi Exchange, the first exchange in China to list Siacoin, commented: “Using a decentralized approach to meet the needs of both storage and idle space is a typical UBER model, so SIA is the “UBER” of the cloud storage industry. SIA has solved the problem of connecting user needs with idle social resources, and also solved the problem of connecting user storage needs with idle space. Will SIA become the world’s largest cloud storage company without a single hard drive?”
Sia was born in May last year and has been developed in a low-key manner. The team currently has four full-time staff. CEO David Vorick is a 26-year-old young man who graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and once interned at IBM. Sia is a project under Nabulous Labs. 3.9% of the transaction volume on the Sia platform belongs to siafunds, and Nabulous Labs owns about 90% of siafunds. The Sia team raises funds through the future income of these siafunds. After Sia is basically completed, Nabulous plans to build some profitable projects on it, which can also be financed. Zhang Xiaotong, an early investor and community participant of Sia, bought Siafunds when Sia just started crowdsale. He told Babbitt that he decided to invest mainly because he was optimistic about the founder’s clear thinking and vision for the project: “The Sia team now has 4 full-time developers. The team is capable (there are people who understand consensus mechanisms, encryption technology, cloud storage market, and computer technology, etc.), practical and hardworking, and focused on technology and product development without hype.”
He is very satisfied with the current progress of the Sia project: "First, the development of decentralized cloud storage is technically difficult. Second, compared with other similar projects (maidsafe and storj), Sia's development progress is the fastest and its system is the most secure. Sia's network has been tested and run in a public environment for more than a year, while other projects have not yet been run in a public environment or have just started to run and test in a public environment. Sia's space rental and file hosting smart contract development is also ahead. In short, the Sia system can now be used in a decentralized environment, while others cannot. Of course, Sia still needs to be improved and further improved before it can be commercialized. But Sia is very close to commercialization."
Lao Mao mentioned in the article "In-depth Discussion on Investment Opportunities in SIACOIN" that the Sia project is currently in financing negotiations and more than one investor is being contacted; Sia founder David Vorick recently accepted an exclusive interview with Babbitt. In this interview, David also told us that relevant news will be announced in the next week or two. Let's take a look at other content about Sia that David shared with us: 8btc: Please explain what Sia is in your opinion in layman's terms? What problems does it solve? David Vorick:Siacoin is a data storage platform. It's a way to put files online and keep them safe. But unlike other data storage platforms, Sia does not require you to trust your data with a single company or platform. On Sia, all of your data is fully encrypted, and is spread all over the world. Sia is also a completely open source project with no central hardware. The parent company of Sia only hosts a very small percentage of the data on the network. If our company fails or disappears, all of the data is still safe and accessible. We don't have any control, all of the control belongs to the user. Data is one of the most important resources you can have, it makes sense that you would be in control of your data instead of being forced to trust someone else to keep your data safe.
Sia is a data storage platform. It puts files on the network and keeps them safe. But unlike other data storage platforms, Sia does not require you to host your data with a company or platform. On Sia, all data is encrypted and distributed around the world. Sia is also a completely open source project without any central hardware. Sia's parent company only hosts a very small portion of the data on the network. If our company fails or disappears, all data will still be safe and accessible. We do not control the data, but the users do. Data is one of the most important resources you can have, and it makes sense for users to control their data instead of being forced to trust others to keep it safe.
8btc: Please tell us about your experience with digital currency and blockchain. What prompted you to create the Sia project? David Vorick: I have been following Bitcoin closely since 2011. Starting in 2013, I started following the cryptocurrency research community as well. For 3 years now I have been reading papers and closely following major security and scalability events in the ecosystem. I originally did it because I thought that blockchains were fascinating. I now believe that they are going to be a major driving force in the global economy over the next 10-30 years. Bitcoin has, by far, the best chance at being the new backbone for money. But I also realized that blockchains were good for things other than money. And in particular I have a paranoia around my data. When I upload my files to the cloud, Google, Apple, Amazon, or whichever provider (often multiple, because many providers use the hardware of other providers) has full access to them. They can see everything, and they can delete everything. What happens to my data is fully under their control. I wanted something better than that. And I realized that we could use a blockchain to achieve that. When the data is on one platform, you are at the mercy of one company. But if the data is spread all over the world, protected by dozens or hundreds of different people, then you have something secure. Sia allows us to do this without incurring great expenses.
I’ve been following Bitcoin since 2011. I’ve been following the cryptocurrency research community since 2013. Now, 3 years later, I’ve read a lot of reports and closely followed the major security and scaling events happening in this ecosystem. I did this initially because I thought blockchains were fascinating. I now believe that blockchains will become a major driver of the global economy in the next 10 to 30 years. Bitcoin has by far the best chance of becoming the new backbone of money. In particular, I’m paranoid about my data. When I upload my data to the cloud, to Google, Apple, Amazon, or some other provider (usually multiple, because many providers use other providers’ hardware), those providers have full access to that data. They can see everything, they can delete everything. My data is completely under their control. I wanted something better than that. I realized we could use blockchains to do that. When data is put on a platform, you’re at the mercy of a single company. But if data is stored in a way that’s distributed around the world and protected by dozens or hundreds of different people, then you can keep that data secure. Sia does that, and it’s cheap.
8btc: How big do you think the cloud storage market is? What do you think of this market and its competitors? David Vorick: Cloud storage is a massive industry, there are billions of dollars per year being handed to companies who are trying to protect data. And, that amount is growing quickly. We've entered the age of 'Big Data'. Everybody is trying to collect as much data as possible, because data gives you an edge over your competition, and makes impossible things easy. Storage is getting cheaper, but data demand is growing faster than storage is getting cheaper. For some data, it's important that the data is always safe. For some data, it's important that the data can be quickly sent all over the world. Sia is better than the traditional technologies for both of these scenarios. Sia can host data in more than 30 countries. Not even Amazon can say that. in each city. But Sia allows anyone to store data. And because we use a blockchain, we know that if they lose the data, they will lose a lot of money. Even more, it's okay if they lose the data, because the data is highly redundant.
Cloud storage is a huge industry, with hundreds of millions of dollars being paid to companies every year to protect their data . And that number is rising rapidly. We have entered the 'age of big data'. Everyone is trying to collect as much data as possible because data can give them a competitive advantage and make the impossible possible with ease. Storage costs are getting cheaper, but the demand for data is growing faster than the cost of storage is decreasing. For some data, security is critical. For some big data, it is important to be able to send it around the world quickly. Sia does both of these better than traditional technologies. Sia can host data in over 30 countries. Even Amazon can't say that. Sia is still small and very young. When it reaches the scale of Amazon, we will be able to host data in every city, for over 100,000 people. Because Sia is decentralized, we can do this more efficiently than Amazon. Amazon has to build a data center in every city, but Sia allows everyone to store data. And because we use blockchain, we know that if they lose the data, they will lose a lot of money, or worse, but with blockchain, if they lose the data, it doesn't matter because the data is highly redundant.
8btc: Compared with the current distributed cloud storage competitors in the market, such as Storj and Maidsafe, what are the advantages or characteristics of Sia? (For example, is it more secure because it uses PoW?) David Vorick:I try not to focus too much on our competition. The goals of each platform are slightly different. MaidSAFE is more ambitious. Storj seems more focused on the end consumer, where Sia is more focused on enterprises. But I will say that in decentralized systems, the security is very difficult, and the programming is very difficult. All three platforms have now learned that first-hand. you are patient, you can put a few gigabytes of data onto our network and have it be fully decentralized. Nobody else can say that. But we are also short of our goal. It should be *easy* to put a few GBs on our network, and the network should not experience any instability even if you are putting millions of gigabytes on the network. We are not there yet. And that is only the first hurdle. Things must also be secure. Of the three, the Sia team has the strongest security background, and we have prioritized security from day one. I have not formally audited our competitors, because I don't think it's the best use of my time. But, from what I know about their algorithms for finding the best hosts, for splitting up and deduplicating data, and for verifying that hosts are actually storing the files, I think a sophisticated attacker will be able to cheat on our competitors platforms. And because the platforms are anonymous, I think that they will see actual cheaters on their platform who will drive prices up and reliability down (because they are cheating). I am worried because the types of security events that our competitors talk about do not seem to cover even most of the things that the Bitcoin research community is most worried about. We will find out.
I try not to focus too much on our competition. Each platform has slightly different goals. MaidSafe is more ambitious. Storj seems more focused on the end consumer, and Sia is more focused on the enterprise. But I will say that for decentralized systems, security is very hard, and programming is very hard . All three platforms have learned this. It's been two years, and no one can say that they have built a successful, stable network. Sia has the most work. If you have patience, you can store a few gigabytes of data on our network and it's completely decentralized. Others can't do that. But we're also short of our goals. It shouldn't be hard to put a few gigabytes on our network, and even millions of gigabytes on our network without the network becoming unstable. But we're not there yet, and that's just the first hurdle. The data has to be secure. Of the three platforms, the Sia team has the strongest security background and has made security a priority from day one. I haven't formally reviewed our competitors. We don't think it's worth spending time on that. However, from what I understand, they look for the best escrow, separation and duplication of data, and algorithms to verify that the escrow is actually storing the file. I think a sophisticated attacker would be able to trick our competitor's platform. Because the platform is anonymous, I think they would see actual scammers on the platform, and these people would drive the price up and the trustworthiness down. I am concerned because the types of security incidents our competitors are talking about don't seem to cover what even most of the Bitcoin research community is most worried about.
8btc: What is the latest progress of the Sia system? What problems does Sia still face or need to solve? David Vorick: Sia is making lots of progress. Since our last release, one month ago, we have added several thousand lines of code to the project. Lots of it is testing. Lots of it is upgrading stability. Lots of it is fixing bugs. Our v1.0.0 release was very buggy, and this is something we are taking seriously. tools that make it easier for us to find and fix bugs. Parts of the code were so slow that, even though it was working correctly, just the slowness alone was causing bugs. We have made that code faster. I would say we're about halfway done making fixes. be proud of that. But having 1000 users who all enjoy using Sia, that would make me happy. That is a foundation that you can build off of. We will get to a strong foundation. It is our focus above everything else.
Sia is making a lot of progress. Since our launch a month ago, we've added thousands of lines of code to the project. Some of that is testing, some of that is stability updates, and some of that is bug fixing. Our 1.0.0 release is for a lot of bugs, and it's something we're taking very seriously. On the surface, it looks like we've been quiet lately, but internally we've been very busy. Our biggest concern right now is the reliability of the platform . We now have tools that make it easier for us to find and fix bugs. Code progress is very slow, and while code work is moving in the right direction, that slowness itself leads to bugs. We've been ramping up code work and are about halfway done with fixes. I think that's the right way to spend our time. Sia won't be successful until the network is stable. Making Sia successful is the most important thing for us. Having a million users won't mean anything and I won't be proud of it if they're struggling to use the product. But having a thousand users who enjoy using Sia will make me very happy. That's the foundation we're going to build on. We're going to have a strong foundation. That's our biggest focus.
8btc: Are there any commercial collaborations being discussed? How far is Sia from commercial applications? David Vorick: We have started to expand our business networks. There are some partnerships in the works, but I do not want to share too much information. Our prices are extremely good. This has many people interested. Many are waiting to see if we can make things more stable. A few are taking risks despite the instability.
We have started to expand our business network. We have some collaborations going on, but I don't want to share too much information about them. Our prices are very good. That's got a lot of people interested. A lot of people are waiting to see if we can make things more stable. Few people will take the risk of this instability. We have built something very strong, and it's attracting people's attention. But it's not appropriate to say too much at this time.
8btc: The funds required to enter this ecosystem by purchasing a storage contract are currently about $2.25/TB/month, which is much lower than the competitor S3's $29/TB/month or Dropbox's $9.9/TB/month. According to the price at the time of writing the article, it would cost about $2.25/TB/month to use the storage system. As the price of the coin rises, the cost of using the system rises. Will this cause people who really want to use the storage system to not want the token price to rise? David Vorick: The price of storage is independent of the price of the coin. The storage marketplace on Sia is highly competitive. If your price is too high, you do not get contracts. Hosts are very aware of this, and are continuously adjusting their prices to be competitive, so that people will choose them to host data. As the price of the coin goes up, the hosts adjust their prices down. We saw this happen very quickly when the price spiked from 30 satoshis to 150 satoshis. The cost of storage in USD barely moved. As the price of the coin went up, hosts asked for fewer coins, because they knew it would make them competitive. And when a few hosts did this, all of the other hosts had to do it as well, because they were no longer getting contracts. Sia has been designed to be extremely competitive. Either you sell at a price that beats your competitors or you don't get any revenue at all. And because there are dozens and dozens of competitors, some of whom are anonymous, there is no chance of collusion, unions, or pacts. The only The way to make money is to compete.
Storage prices have nothing to do with coin prices. The Sia storage market is extremely competitive. If your prices are too high, you can’t get contracts. Custodians realize this and constantly adjust their prices to stay competitive, so people choose them to host their data. As the coin price goes up, custodians adjust their prices down. This happens very quickly when the price spikes from 30 satoshis to 150 satoshis. The cost of storage in USD rarely changes. When the coin price goes up, custodians charge less coins because they know that makes them more competitive. When some custodians do this, all the other custodians are forced to do the same because they can no longer get contracts. Sia is designed to make it extremely competitive. It doesn’t matter if you sell at a price that beats your competition, or you make no money at all. Because there are dozens of competitors, some of whom are anonymous, there is no chance of collusion, coalition, or agreement. The only way to make money is to compete.
8btc: What do you think of the Chinese market? Why did you choose to list on the Yunbi exchange in China? David Vorick:We are very excited to be involved with the Chinese market. There is a lot of demand for storage in the US, but China is hungrier. I think that China could end up being more than half of our ecosystem, and we are glad for it. Yunbi is a progressive, inspirational exchange and we are honored to be one of the few assets traded on their platform. I think it is common for the West to overlook China, and I think that is a big mistake. People often underestimate China. We are trying not to do that.
We are very excited to be involved in the Chinese market. The US does have a lot of storage demand, but China is hungry for it. I think China will eventually account for more than half of our ecosystem, and we are very happy about that. Yunbi is a progressive and inspiring exchange, and we are honored to be one of the few assets listed on their exchange. I think it is very common for the West to ignore China, and I think this is a huge mistake. People often underestimate China. We are working hard not to do that.
8btc: What are Sia’s recent plans? David Vorick: For a long time, Sia has lacked a good testnet. This makes testing harder for us, but it also makes testing harder for the people building products on top of Sia as well. We are going to be releasing testnet software in the coming week. It will make life easier for app developers, will make testing easier for everyone, and it will mean fewer bugs. Fewer bugs in Sia, and fewer bugs in the tools that depend on Sia. There will be more information available soon. For a long time, Sia has lacked a good testnet. This has made testing more difficult for us, and for people who are building products on top of Sia. We plan to release testnet software in the coming week. This will make life easier for app developers, and testing easier for everyone, which means fewer bugs. Fewer bugs in Sia, and fewer bugs in the tools that rely on Sia. More information will be released soon.
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