[ad_1]
Siacoin (SC) began development in 2013 as part of the first generation of blockchain projects that sought to create more than just transactional money.
Under the guidance of undergraduates in computer science, David Vorick and Luke Champine, Siacoin aimed to provide a decentralized file storage network; hosted on the blockchain and paid for the use of the SC coin.
Following some aggressive funding for Vorick and Champine Nebulous Labs Inc, the team went to work and reappeared in 2015 bringing the first beta version of Siacoin.
Now, five years after the project was conceived, Siacoin file storage costs the equivalent of $ 0.73 per TB per month, compared to the average $ 10 commission required by Dropbox, OneDrive and Box.
However, it was not clear for the decentralized cloud storage service, as Sia's community was recently shaken by a one-year saga that divided the community into two – whose tremors continue to be felt to this day.
How Siacoin works
The Siacoin storage system is managed by a series of smart contracts, encryption and reputation systems, all combined to create a reliable and decentralized storage market.
Storage hosts are constantly monitored by the network to ensure that they still keep the encrypted files they have committed to store and that their service remains online. Those who fail who too many checks lose the coins and are downloaded from the network.
This type of autonomous control can also be found in the pricing mechanism of Siacoin, which constantly monitors the network for the lowest compatible rate set by independent storage hosts and gives priority to the first.
Obelisk Mining Rig Saga
Siacoin is one of the few blockchain to reject the Bitmain ASIC miners outright in favor of its miner Obelisk. Both specific mining platforms were produced by Nebulous Labs Inc. – the company formed by both creators Vorick and Champine.
Problems started when the release of mining rigs was delayed, and in the following months several other hardware companies abandoned their extraction platforms. Both on the market. This left the Siacoin miners devoid of hardware, money and trust in a project that many had supported since the beginning.
You can read more about the saga here and here, but in the end the decision was taken by Vorick to forge Siacoin to exclude rival hardware and focus exclusively on the Obelisk mining platforms owned by Nebulous Labs.
Predictably, this divided the community into two. As of October 2018, at least one class action lawsuit has been leveled against Nebulous Labs, with investors asking for compensation for the mining platforms that apparently have not yet been delivered.
History of the market
Between January and June 2017, Siacoin recorded a growth peak of 12.500% while its market cap rose from $ 5 million to $ 630 million. Obviously, this was before the wave of the market at the turn of the year, which saw the capitalization of Siacoin rise to $ 3 billion.
However, the 2018 bear market has taken its toll on SC, and now, towards the end of the year, the currency represents a market capitalization of $ 250 million.
It can now be withdrawn for less than a penny, priced at $ 0.006. There is no total supply limit on coins and 37 billion are already in circulation. To deal with the obvious inflationary issues arising therefrom, a routine routine of coin burning occurs.
Overall, the Siacoin network currently hosts 224 TB of data on a total storage capacity of 3.8 PB (one petabyte equals one thousand terabytes). The network also boasts 538 storage hosts spread across every continent of the world.
Conclusion
Siacoin represents a strange case in the cryptic world. On the one hand, it is perhaps one of the most successful applications of decentralized technology operating in space today.
On the other hand, the disordered internal mechanisms of the Bitmain / Obelisk saga also represent an example of how precarious the game of decentralization can be. The trick to permanently exclude Bitmain technology is scheduled for Halloween, October 31, 2018.
The shakes of the mining rig are expected to be felt for some time, but the live Siacoin product continues to outperform its name, the centralized counterparts.
Disclaimer: The author owns bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies. It holds investment positions in the currencies, but does not carry out trading activities in the short term or daily.
Featured image courtesy of Shutterstock.
