Decentralized Storage Platform Sia Comes Out of Beta

The decentralized storage platform Sia has announced it has released its 1.0 version with a graphical user interface (GUI) and an instant wallet. The project has been anticipated since late 2015 since the developing team launched the project, which is similar to concepts such as Filecoin and Storj.

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Sia: Storage the Decentralized Way

The “Enterprise-Grade Collaborative Cloud for Data Storage” otherwise known as Sia (sia.tech) has announced the unveiling of its 1.0 release. It claims the platform will create a trustless environment that is more secure than traditional file storage systems. Created by developers, David Vorick, and Luke Champine, the project is maintained by Nebulous inc.

The protocol stores data throughout a sophisticated pattern of nodes using smart contract technology. User files are protected with a system call “Twofish,” which according to the white paper, “enables the formation of storage contracts between peers.”

The company states:

With the version 1 release, we are committing to preserving siad API compatibility. This means that third-party developers can begin making apps that integrate with the current Sia daemon and expect that as future versions of the daemon are released, their users can upgrade without worrying about breaking the plugins or alternate apps that they are dependent on. There are also a number of important security updates, including fixing a DoS vector, making siad more safe for miners out-of-the-box, fixing a security vulnerability in the host that would allow the renter to drain host funds for free. Some of these security issues are significant, so we strongly recommend that everyone update to v1.0 as fast as possible. We are going to be spending the next week observing the ecosystem, getting community feedback, and figuring out what our most important priorities should be. Some of the things that will potentially appear on our roadmap includes more guides, more business development, improved wallet interactions (instant unlocking, better seed loading, deep seed scanning), siafunds on exchanges, more physical-world meetups, and of course general improvements to the Sia technology.

The team is looking forward to working with the community and beyond to build a better Sia and a more decentralized world.

The automated peer-to-peer blockchain-based collaborative enables users to rent file storage space from each other rather than a centralized provider. Sia has initially been implemented as an Altcoin, but the developers are firm supporters of the Bitcoin ecosystem.

The team says the protocol resembles Bitcoin in many ways except the departure lies in a transaction variance. With Bitcoin, a scripting system is used but with Sia, the developers implemented an M–of–N multi-signature scheme for transactions. Currently, there are 15.63 billion Siacoins in the network with 20,937 active file contracts at the present time.

It adds that the platform could also be used for a decentralized application environments working with third-party app development and the Sia client. Alongside this, its protocol has a basic reputation system, uptime incentives, client protections and host protections. The code is also available for view via Github.

The team believes the distribution of nodes makes their system far superior, and the project is censorship resistant and fault-tolerant. Cloud storage via using the Sia application is based on a tier of set terabytes per month. The core developers of Sia, David Vorick, and Luke Champine believe “Sia will provide a fertile platform for decentralized cloud storage in trustless environments.”

What do you think about the Sia decentralized file storage platform? Let us know in the comments below.

Images courtesy of Sia Websites, and Pixabay