Storj V3 - Decentralized Enterprise Storage is Back!

Node Operators
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History of Storj

(quick version re-told from my user experience side)

They started their ICO on Ethereum and aimed initially to compete with Filecoin… which did not go anywhere quickly. Then SiaCoin came into place… and took over. But then, the instability of crypto markets killed it (in my view). Distributed storage was a hard game to make business with (if you want to compare it with “THE CLOUD” thing).

They started their ICO on Counterparty and then migrated to Ethereum and in my view at that stage (migration) it looked like they were competing (to me) with what was being called Filecoin… which did not go anywhere quickly. Then SiaCoin also came into place… and took over some great community. But then, the instability of crypto markets killed it quite a bit (in my view).

Distributed storage was a hard game to make business with (if you want to compare it with “THE CLOUD” thing).

Storj took a couple of steps back (the cost was huge… to investors) and decided to re’think the solution and make it more “Enterprise” level. I mean… really Business level, but with the perks of crypto and decentralization mixed in.

This facilitated some perspectives on how to create a healthy economic structure where service providers and customers could both take the best out of it.

The new V3 - Storj Server Node

This is my working Windows GUI Demo server, which will be sort of an average of what I expect that will appear on the market as service providers I would say. Probably even above in terms of space. Around 4-8TB of space is probably the sweet spot of guess. And in terms of bandwidth, unfortunately, because people don’t really all have great routers or know how to configure them efficiently, I can’t comment.

The big issue is availability. Having +95% of uptime is quite hard for most “houses” PCs… But as word of encouragement, I can tell you it’s possible. I have done it… way above that (once at least).

The next tests I will love to do, are on a proper Linux Server, with more Storage. But before that I need to see how things go… then try out the Client access too, hard!

I mean, I am after 10Gbps connections. If that can be archived at an interesting cost, then, I can use this on HPC (High Performance Computing).

Also, in smaller (in terms of storage requirements) applications, if this is fast enough to replace temporary research buckets that later end up inside HPC clusters, then this can become a very interesting product for the work environment I try to provide to researchers.

Future plans…

Personally, this could even take an interesting business model I am yet studying. Basically providing temporary storage for things that are either very complicated to communicate with (like buoys, small subs, micro-satellites for surveillance or Earth scanning using IR for example, etc), that usually depend on the location to authenticate and upload data.

Being dependent on a couple of servers is way different when you compare with an infrastructure that has tons of them with high reliability, throughput, encryption and endpoint discovery.

Business model

Is it profitable? I am not sure yet. But the promoted amounts sounded very attractive. Especially if you already have something contracted and you are not using it in full.

I will be exploring the next developments in the following up months. If you have any questions, let me know.

by @forykw
Reposted from my original post at: https://steemit.com/steemstem/@forykw/storj-v3-decentralized-enterprise-storage-is-back

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The story was a different. Storj made their ICO on Counterparty network, based on bitcoin, in 2014.

On the Ethereum it was a token sale - the same amount of remaining tokens called SJCX has been converted to the ERC20 tokens STORJ on Ethereum. So, it’s not an ICO at all: https://storj.io/blog/2017/03/migration-from-counterparty-to-ethereum/
https://storj.io/blog/2017/05/token-migration-plan-pt.2/
https://storj.io/blog/2017/09/token-sale-wrap-up-details/

About participating of venture capital firms you can read there: https://storj.io/blog/2017/02/storj-labs-raises-3-million-in-seed-funding/

The second, the Filecoin didn’t exist yet, when the Storj was ready for production usage in 2017: https://storj.io/blog/2017/03/storj-comes-out-of-beta/
The same for SIA project.

The Storj is aimed to compete not with a decentralized projects but with centralized clouds like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, so Storj doesn’t compete with not existing Filecoin or working SiaCoin, we have a common goal with all decentralized projects - to take off the centralized cloud solutions from market.

I’m really suggest you to research before the publishing a wrong information about the company. You just can take a https://storj.io/blog/archive from the beginning of Real story

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Hey @Alexey, thanks for getting back to my post.

And thank you so much for correcting bad memory about some things, my fault entirely. Either way, I was just trying to speak freely about what I could remember or how I could remember. No intention at all about disseminating wrong information. Sorry if that’s what you thought I was trying to do.

I messed up in lots of terms… :smile: and you chased me like a “shark”! LOL =) Defending Storj is in your blood, I can tell!

Anyway, I will update my post with your information. Thanks.

There are only a few things I don’t quite agree with you… When you say things didn’t exist… you are referring to “companies” or entities… while I was referring to movements or communities (even if nothing concrete still exists). I have also not referred to any point in time (as in regards to you referring to your mention about 2017). You clearly tried to explain the entire story based on the fact that you were trying to help/correct me, and that’s awesome, but the intention of my post was not to recall or tell the story… was just to situate my next conversation within the post.

For last, and in my view, I think Storj is doing an amazing job, although I don’t think the right strategy is to compete with centralized storage companies…

I also don’t think that removing centralized storage is a factor for competition. Centralization is necessary by nature, in the right places at the right time. Decentralization is also very useful and less developed when compared with centralized Enterprise Storage solutions. I would say, due to historical reasons of technology evolution.

Thanks for the suggestions though, and I will closely follow the V3 developments as I am interested in seeing the use cases of using the tech in HPC.

Cheers

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I have to agree with Alexey here, Filecoin did not even announce their ICO until July 2017, at which time the Storj token sale had already concluded. Noone knew about Filecoin before that, other than their founders. Futhermore, I suggest you refrain from referring to token sale participants as ¨investors¨ this is a completely inaccurate use of the term, and you can read the terms of sale of the token sale if you would like to know more about this.

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I loved the part when “farmers” needed 10000 SCJX per address to receive rewards, specially when price was around $1.30 per SJCX in Jun’2017 before STORJ token sale

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I am sorry but you got your timeline a bit mixed up. The price of SJCX was not $1.30 in our first alpha when farmers were required to hold 10k SJCX in order to run a node. At that time, this was equivalent to about $100. At no time in 2017 did we ever require anyone to hold SJCX, and especially not in June 2017, when we had already migrated to the STORJ token. It really would be nice if people abstained from making comments about the history of the Storj project when they are not well informed about what really happened.

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I knew… and I am not a founder.

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Not sure I wrote that… but thanks for the observation. Maybe people think I am trying to “overwrite” something here… I am just merely “chatting” about things.

I have no intention of explaining things about tokens, sales, etc… the reader can do that if they don’t understand.

Again, just introducing my view of things… not really trying to tell everyone what really happened.

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Where did you get that price… ? can put up a print screen…

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I think people are having the wrong perception I had initially planned for this post… that is really disappointing (my fault again). It feels that the target public inside of this forum is way more educated that I though, therefore it doesn’t make sense to target.

I am really sorry if people got my message wrong. The intent was to create an healthy discussion and not a so provocative one due some of my “mistakes” or disseminate wrong information.

The feedback I come home with this, is that forum.storj.io audience is not for every public and will drive some users away from the project due the way communication is conducted. This is my view OK?

For me does not make any difference, and I kindly appreciate people to correct me if I am wrong (with proof preferably). But tough useful for everyone to know my opinion too about what I think the forum experience.

Thanks everyone

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I don´t know why you believe that correcting incorrect statements for the benefit of the rest of the users on here should drive away anyone but fudsters who are in fact trying to propagate false or exaggerated interpretations of our project. This is not a general chat room to shoot the breeze but a place where people come to get help with their concrete problems, and find general and accurate information about the project. So I am sorry if you interpret this as hostile but hopefully you can understand that we cannot just let discussions here turn into flaming sessions like on reddit.

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Again, to remind you, the Storj project started in 2014, and Filecoin did not exist at that time, so there is no way that Storj was created to compete with a nonexistent future project which until today still has not produced anything close to Storj´s actual working product.

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I did not said that… sorry, we being too much complicated here. I just merely tried to say that filecoin was attempting to do something in the same area as Storj… with my own words. I don’t disagree with your statement nor my statement is implying going against yours. Just a different line of thinking.

Thanks

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I had the impression that I selected “getting started” topic… when I posted this. To be honest I had a bit of a problem understanding where to do it… but though it could be the right place. Sorry if not…

I have also re-posted in recommendation from someone else from Storj. So, I am now feeling badly for all of this…

It’s not the “correcting the incorrect” that drives the users away (in my view), its the way people communicate with other people… probably not a conversation to have here… but if you come to New Zealand, I would gladly have that conversation presently with you. And we can share our views and learn a few things with each other I am sure. :slight_smile:

Anyway, thanks a lot all. I am not going to continue this… as I understand now, this was not the right place to post. I will be sure to do more due diligence on “ask first” do more later…

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So just to let everyone know a little bit more context here, the post of the OP was first published on steemit 2 days ago and then reposted here on our forum. So my concern is mostly with the effect the posting of opinions rather than factual information about Storj has on users on that platform who know little to nothing about Storj and its history, and who were not given a link to this forum where they could learn more about how to successfully run a node themselves.

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I have updated the steem post, can you re-check the post then, and validate if your concern is now resolved? Thanks.

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I don’t think anyone would fault you for sharing your opinion. But it becomes problematic if you make factual statements that contradict reality. For example, if you mention timelines, you should be correct about the order of events. Why mention the history of Storj at all if you’re not certain about that history?

If you just stick to your experience with the product, what you like and dislike about it, that’s fine too. But stating as fact, what is clearly wrong leads to the kind of response you’re getting now.

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I meant I loved to buy some 10K’s SJCX in Jan’16 due to this requirement because the profit in June 2017 was pretty good to me :slight_smile: sorry for the missunderstanding :joy:
Just feeling nostalgic about the old times. Remember when people even tried to sell their pepes in the forum?

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People had a chance to buy SJCX at the first crowdsale in 2014 but back then, unfortunately not too many took this project seriously yet and thus missed the boat.

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