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posted by martyb on Saturday August 12 2017, @06:47AM   Printer-friendly
from the 'flip'-a-coin? dept.

A blockchain-based cloud storage technology called Filecoin has already raised $52 million from investors. The company is poised to raise millions more on Thursday when it begins selling units of its bitcoin-like cryptocurrency to a larger set of wealthy investors.

Filecoin aims to disrupt conventional cloud-based storage platforms from Amazon and others. If it succeeds, the technology could be worth billions of dollars. But the company will need to overcome some significant hurdles first.

First and foremost, Filecoin's technology doesn't actually exist yet. The Filecoin team has done extensive research and planning, producing a series of white papers describing the technology it's building. But an actual, working Filecoin network is still months away. When it launches, Filecoin will compete with rival blockchain storage networks, including Sia, which has been available to the public for two years.

"Filecoin currently is just a white paper," Sia co-founder David Vorick told us earlier this week.

Have any Soylentils encountered or used blockchain storage, and if so what did you think of it?

Source: Ars Technica

Also at Medium, TechCrunch, and CoinDesk.


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  • (Score: 2) by bradley13 on Saturday August 12 2017, @08:57AM (4 children)

    by bradley13 (3053) on Saturday August 12 2017, @08:57AM (#552802) Homepage Journal

    The white paper is interesting, and does address all of the obvious issues. While I only skimmed it, I started with a list of questions regarding security, availability, reliability, and outright cheating by miners. The paper addressed all of the questions I had. Whether they have solved the issues is a different question, one that probably cannot be answered without some real-world trials. But they are at least working on them.

    That said, I'm not seeing the use case. If I want cloud storage, which is dirt cheap and easy to set up, why would I enter into the relatively complex world of FileCoin?

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  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday August 12 2017, @02:27PM (3 children)

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday August 12 2017, @02:27PM (#552852) Journal

    If I want money storage, which at a bank is dirt cheap and easy to set up, why would I enter into the relatively complex world of Bitcoin?

    The more interesting question is: What is all the money needed for? Obviously Bitcoin could be developed and employed without big investor money. So what's different about Filecoin?

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @06:00PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 12 2017, @06:00PM (#552912)

      Efficiency? Security?

      Maybe obscurity? Or, flat out perversity? (just because we can)

    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday August 12 2017, @06:16PM (1 child)

      by frojack (1554) on Saturday August 12 2017, @06:16PM (#552918) Journal

      What is all the money needed for?

      1) To incentivize you to offer up spare space on you NAS box(s) for "cloud" storage of random blocks of data from customers.
      2) To pay for storage you've stuffed into the cloud so as not to have your warez and porn on your own computer.

      I will gladly pay you Tuesday to hold my porn collection today. We'll use imaginary IOU notes to keep score.

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      • (Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday August 12 2017, @11:27PM

        by edIII (791) on Saturday August 12 2017, @11:27PM (#553027)

        I will gladly pay you Tuesday to hold my porn collection today.

        But why do that when the Internet holds my porn collection every day?

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