zk = zero knowledge. I (as a node) don’t need to know anything about the underlying asset. All I need (as a node) is a list of segments to audit, and a list of nodes storing those segments. We could even go a step further and reverse that. As a node being audited, I can get a list of nodes to send my hashes to, or even add the hashes to a block. That way the auditing node doesn’t need any information on who is actually storing the segments. When 100 auditing nodes get the hashes from the blockchain, they sign the current epoch (verifying that all segments do indeed have the same hashes) and the satellite steps in if there are any discrepancies (ie if an audited node added a wrong hash, go to that node directly and ask for a new hash/verify other segments).
In this case instead of the satellite doing all the work, the few VIP nodes do the majority of the work and the satellite is there to verify that everything is going according to plan.
Humans didn’t have a solution to go to the moon until they did. On why “reinventing the wheel”:
Because the wheel is currently more hexagonal than round. Yes it works, but not the way it’s supposed to work.
Respectfully: I (and others) are providing constructive criticism based on the information we have at our disposal. Again respectfully, automatically switching to a “nope, can’t be done” stance isn’t productive.