Why blockchains are the future of cloud storage.

Bitcoins and blockchain tech are — without a doubt — the future of finance. Our money currently flows through a slow combination of outdated digital and physical infrastructure. There is widespread belief that blockchains, which create trust without the need for a trusted third party, will overhaul these antiquated systems.

But what about cloud storage?

Before companies like Amazon offered cloud services, storage infrastructure was very much decentralized. Companies hosted their own servers in their own offices. This allowed for more control, but also resulted in higher costs. Companies needed in-house expertise to set up and maintain costly servers and drives. They also needed to invest in off-site backups for redundancy.

It’s no surprise that most organizations have switched to the cloud. At about $25 per terabyte per month, services like Amazon S3 offer incredible value and, by replicating data across multiple data centers, offer reliable uptime and redundancy.

This convenience has blinded us from the downsides. When using a cloud service, we put a large amount of trust in third parties. We trust these third parties to secure our most sensitive, most private data. This data is typically unencrypted. Moreover, costs seem low — but that’s because we have no good point of reference.

We trust these third parties to secure our most sensitive, most private data.

I see huge parallels between existing cloud storage infrastructure and existing financial infrastructure. Both rely on trusted third parties. Both could be more efficient and more affordable. Both will be replaced with blockchains.

A blockchain enables the creation of a decentralized, distributed storage marketplace. The most successful marketplaces identify under-utilized resources and match them with large nascent demand. Uber, for example, matched under-utilized automobiles with consumers demanding better transportation options.

On a blockchain storage marketplace, hosts sell their surplus storage capacity and renters purchase this surplus capacity and upload files. Payments take place over the blockchain. Files are encrypted, broken up into fragments, and intelligently distributed across dozens of nodes in dozens of countries.

Using a blockchain enables a few things that were previously impossible:

1. Complete decentralization and true redundancy. Amazon S3 accomplishes redundancy by spreading files throughout regional data centers. This makes each data center a large point of failure. On a decentralized blockchain, where data is stored on dozens of individual nodes intelligently disbursed across the globe, it is extremely difficult to cause meaningful disruptions.
2. Total privacy. No third party controls user data or has access to user files. Each node only stores encrypted fragments of user data. Users control their own keys.
3. Order-of-magnitude cost reductions. Blockchain storage costs around $2 per terabyte per month, compared with Amazon S3’s $25 per terabyte per month. This is possible due to efficiency — each host incurs small costs, which when summed are less than Amazon’s costs (and remember, Amazon also has to make a sizable profit).

With these advantages, I believe blockchain storage marketplaces will ultimately replace existing cloud storage infrastructure by Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and others. We are headed toward a decentralized web. There’s much to be excited for!

Sia, by Nebulous Inc., is a blockchain-based decentralized cloud storage platform. Zach works as Head of Operations for Nebulous.