There is a lot of FUD around crypto at the moment, with a large number of technologists remaining ice cold and almost combatively against the thought of the next wave of the internet being built on Blockchain on what is being touted as Web3. I’m clearly on the side of Web3 and what it offers beyond 8-bit Apes and Ponzi scheme pumps and dumps. Yes, that part needs to sort its self out, but I would challenge anyone to cast their minds back to the early days of the WWW when all sorts of unscrupulous behaviours was taking place before things settled… and mass adoption took place. The internet has always had an unsavoury underbelly, but in a lot of cases… that is where innovation started, allowing technology to bubble up for the more positive use cases.
Starting with Storage
From my point of view, maybe the best way for the doubters to dip their toes into decentalization, Blockchain and Web3 is to start with what storage looks like in this world. There are quite a few projects that exist that offer the ability to store data on decentralized networks leveraging Blockchain for the source of truth in terms of where and how the data is stored. Having worked in and around storage platforms my entire career and knowing the pain points (and risks) they often cause, knowing that there is new way to think about what storage is that is already serving PBs of data excites me… Blockchain angle adds the angle of leveraging emerging technology and thinking a little bit outside the square.
“Decentralized storage offers a different way of thinking about how to store and access your information. Data is distributed across nodes geographically distributed and connected through a peer-to-peer network”
Before Christmas 2021, I sat down with Zac Cohen from Filebase on Great Things with Great Tech and we spent 45 minutes trying to explain what decentralized storage is, how it is being brought to the enterprise world, how it all fits into crypto and how it works by using unused storage on a network of nodes across the world. It’s one of my favourite episodes, and there are some brilliant “aha!” moments throughout. If nothing else, I believe this represents an easily understandable use case for Blockchain and general decentralization of compute platforms.
Have a listen above, or click on the link below.
Debunking Decentralized Blockchain Storage
In this special episode of GTwGT, I am speak with Zac Cohen (COO and founder at FileBase) about a topic that many think is still far away from being a reality… some that think is a science experiment… and others think is an out and out scam. That topic is decentralized storage leveraging Web3 and Blockchain technology. Zac and I talk about how mass adoption is a matter of when, not if… and more importantly, for those that want to understand what it is and isn’t, we talk about what makes this exciting way of storing and accessing data function and what benefits it offers over traditional data storage platforms.
EDIT: I’ve already had some comments come in saying that we offered up no practical example of the use case… apart from listening to the whole Podcast, have read of this post on how Veeam Backup & Replication can use an Object Storage repository backed by the Filebase S3 Compatible Platform.
