What is Storj?
An open source that is offering its users a complete secure, efficient, and decentralized cloud storage service. Furthermore, it works as a P2P (peer to peer) payment system much like Bitcoin.
We have seen in the last few years, that internet security has been a turmoil. A huge hosting website Megaupload was shut down. The NSA along with other government organizations have access to data and files in “safe” cloud storages such as OneDrive and Dropbox. We are at a point where anyone who has entered any personal information on the internet is not secure.
Over the past few years, we saw digital currencies such as bitcoin, stepping up their game in decentralization and securing technology. This system has revolutionized payments worldwide, and not only that it has given us a roadmap for how future decentralized applications can be set.
Storj, is a cryptocurrency, suite, and protocol of decentralizations of applications, that is, offering users to store their data in a decentralized and secure manner. Storj, is using bitcoin inspired features, such as public/private key encryptions, transaction ledger, along with cryptographic mix functions for security reasons.
Storj junctions, or other computers using the software, allows users to sell resources to a store, and transfer the information they want, and earn Storjcoin X in exchange. Anyone can run the software and earn some extra cash, just by leasing your bandwidth and hard drive. They are focused on providing users with a data storage system that cannot be monitored, censored, or have any downtime. Moreover, it is cheaper and 10x-100x faster than any traditional cloud storage services available today.
The cost of Storj is way less than a fraction of what commercial clouds like Dropbox cost. As Storj came out with an infographic, their cost for storing data is extremely cheap. Decentralized Storj claims that selling and buying hard drive space is an independent network, and it can reduce the cost of cloud computing, by size, in 10-100 times cheaper.
Right now, Dropbox is renting out 1TB of space for $99+ tax per year. It does not matter if you used your 1000GB entirely or not, you will still be charged for the 1TB space. But when you use Storj, you will be allowed to rent out the extra space from your Virtual Private Server from services such as Digital Ocean. Where you will be allowed to run a 100GB MetaDisk webnode for $ (final amount depends on various factors). The cost will include redundancy, backup copies, just a few cents to receive the data. For just a few dollars you will have the same storage amount Dropbox is offering for $99+tax. When using Dropbox, you are paying for services that can be profit. As the cost of storage will get cheaper over time, as the storage media capabilities double in a year. Id decentralized storage systems were completely autonomous, the cost of storage can even be $0. This would be impossible for centralized cloud services, as they will still be required to pay rent, salaries, legal fee, regulatory burdens, accounting costs, etc. will remain the same or more likely increase with time. This is the reason why their cost can never match up to a decentralized system cost.
In addition to that, Storj is offering customers encryption of their files, which will ensure that that information stored on the cloud server is secure. Storj, is using metadata to store files, and it calculates how much redundancy it has. Once the blockchain has grown, they will use Markle tree configurations to speed up the process, as seen in Bitcoin SPV wallets.