The metaverse refers to the virtual world — parallel to the physical world — in which people socialize, work, learn and explore. Unlike the physical world, the metaverse exists in a persistent, digital state; and its size and features are constantly evolving as creators and developers develop new platforms, tools, and dApps. The users of the metaverse make up one enormous data file. This data will grow with the metaverse, ultimately forming a big data network.
The vast amount of data that the metaverse will produce as the metaverse expands will undoubtedly put real-world data processing capacity under considerable strain. The issue of data storage thus represents a key challenge to the viability and eventual success of the metaverse.
Distributed storage represents the best means of metaverse data storage currently available. The metaverse network, different from traditional applications and platforms, which use a centralized model, is run on the blockchain. Moreover, metaverse data is processed through distributed storage, as opposed to a single source of storage capacity. Each node in this distributed storage network maintains and manages all data generated by the metaverse, rendering such threats as data loss, data manipulation, and data leakage less likely than in a centralized storage system. Decentralized storage also increases the efficiency of data management by making use of idle resources, such as data centers and personal computers, and can thus handle the massive amount of data that must be stored for the metaverse to function.
Digital transactions will play a key role in the metaverse economy. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in the form of digital artworks, music, films, collectibles, and even literature will be commonly traded between users. Data privacy will also be a core feature of the metaverse: Privacy computing technology will enable users to have sole ownership of their data.
Though metaverse is still developing and requires an advanced blockchain to function, we believe that the metaverse will transform the Internet and revolutionize data ownership.
There are already many decentralized storage solutions in the market, including FIL, CRU, Swarm and Storj, etc. These already up-and-running projects gained a fair amount of attention over the last few years.
We don’t intend to compete with these protocols. Instead, we provide a gateway that offers users simple and fast access to storage resources at a low price. This gateway features a unified API to store and retrieve users’ data. The API is compatible with most decentralized storage protocols.
The aggregator model makes perfect sense from a business perspective. It has enjoyed proven success in many industries, especially the travel industry, where it is used by Expedia, among others; and the sharing economy, where it has been applied by Uber and Airbnb.
However, concerns remain on the technology side, as providing an aggregator for decentralized storage poses unique challenges. This article seeks to address these challenges and convince miners that contributing their mining machine to CCN will allow them to gain extra rewards while experiencing ZERO disruption to their current mining activities.
The CCN storage ecosystem comprises miners and users. Miners contribute their storage to the network and form a storage pool. Users store their files in the storage pool.
A miner contributes their storage to the pool by making a commitment. The commitment basically indicates how much storage that he or she possesses and has committed to CCN. Miners need to stake a certain amount of CCN tokens to make a commitment. The amount of CCN tokens miners stake is calculated by the loss to the network in the event that the miner’s machines unexpectedly go offline. The amount of CCN reward to a miner is based on the miner’s commitment and the amount of time he or she has contributed storage to the network. If a miner withdraws their commitment, their mining machine will not be included in the storage pool. On the other hand, users have to pay CCN tokens to store files in the pool.
So why don’t we need to have miners and mining machines dedicated to CCN, and why does the aggregator model work? Why should FIL, CRU, and other decentralized storage miners join CCN? The answer is simple. Over 95% percent of files on FIL, CRU, and other decentralized networks are junk. Miners store junk data to seal sectors and then submit them for proof-of-spacetime.
This fact allows miners to commit the storage that has already been taken by junk data to CCN. Whenever there is a storage request, a miner can just replace the junk data with a file from a CCN user, which is hugely beneficial to the miner. The miner not only gets double rewards from CCN and their original mining crypto, but he or she also saves the gas cost of storing self-generated junk files.
This fact also allows CCN to directly use the proof from FIL, CRU, and other projects on their blockchains as proof of the miner’s commitment to CCN. Currently, CCN doesn’t have to verify if a miner’s commitment exceeds their available storage, because a miner’s actual available storage space is very close to the proof that the miner submitted to their original mining network. Therefore, mining CCN won’t take any physical resources from the machine, nor will it affect the merge mining of other cryptos.
The statements we made in the last section look too good to be true. We have been asked how a miner could mine one crypto without disrupting their mining of another crypto. Let’s examine the model in a way that is comparable to DeFi. This approach could also help us understand how CCN values storage providers’ contributions, how CCN charges users who store files, etc.
Liquidity pools are one of the foundational technologies in the current DeFi ecosystem. They are an essential part of automated market makers (AMM) and borrow-lend protocols. In the DeFi system, tokens are distributed algorithmically to users, who then put their tokens into a liquidity pool. Next, the newly minted tokens are distributed proportionally to each user’s share of the pool. This algorithm is called liquidity mining.
Now, let’s consider storage as a liquidity asset. By providing aggregated services, CCN constructs a liquidity pool of storage. Then, miners who contribute storage resources to CCN serve as liquidity providers, while users who store files are liquidity “borrowers,” because they take storage resources away from the pool for a certain period of time.
The similarities between the CCN storage aggregator and a DeFi borrow-lend system, such as compound, can be summarized as the following:
Supply mining machines <> Deposit an asset
Withdraw mining machines <> Withdraw an asset
Store files <> Borrow an asset
Remove files <> Repay an asset
Therefore, the CCN token rewards given to the miners function as liquidity incentives. With this in mind, it is no surprise that miners can gain CCN tokens without consuming extra physical resources. Furthermore, we are able to design a rating system on top of the aggregator. So, all the costs of saving files are dynamically adjusted according to supply and demand in the market.
Because of the similarities between the aggregator and a DeFi system, many of the most interesting ideas in DeFi could be applied to the storage market. We are super excited about the infinite possibilities to explore in the future.