What’s in store for Datum in 2020
We’ve been hard at work over the last few months revamping Datum Storage to be scalable and fast while still retaining it’s decentralization.
In Autumn 2019 we launched Datum Drive, a cloud storage service that‘s accessible just like any file folder on your desktop, just like Dropbox or Google Drive. Except that all files are stored on Datum Storage, decentralized and encrypted.
While the Datum SDK has always been available for Javascript, for a good desktop experience we needed something more native, hence we started porting the Datum SDK over to C#, it is already working for Windows in our Datum Drive software and support for Mac and Linux versions is almost finished.
Datum Drive is currently in Alpha but as development continues we are confident to have a stable version in due course. Watch this space for more announcements.
How do files get stored on Datum Storage?
When you store a file through Datum Drive we break the file apart in many little chunks, for each chunk we calculate a hash (a short fingerprint unique to this chunq), the hashes of all chunks get arranged in a tree which results in a merkle tree, it’s basically a hash of all the hashes. This chunking allows us to verify that files are being stored properly by storage nodes without having to check the entire file. Each hash of each file gets committed to the Datum Blockchain. This results in a scaleability problem. The Datum Blockchain is based on Ethereum and as such currently only supports about 15 transactions per second. Imagine a large cloud storage service, of course more than 15 files per second are being stored.
To this end we have started work to group together files in buckets and only commit hashes of buckets to the blockchain, we still need to do some more work but as soon as that is implemented Datum will be able to scale by an order of magnitude and be ready for wider adoption.
Purpose of DAT, the Datum Token
The DAT Token represents storage rights in the Datum Storage network. Currently the storage cost is fixed but this will be changed to be dynamic where storage nodes can set their own prices, which will lead to competition and ultimately the best price. In a next step we will implement staking, requiring storage nodes to commit a certain amount of DAT tokens in return for being able to store data (and earning DAT for storing data). DAT is currently traded on Huobi, Coss.io, Kyber Network and others.
Roadmap 2020
Our roadmap is constantly evolving but here is a rough snapshot
- Q1 Datum SDK port to C# for Win/Mac/Linux
- Q1 Datum Drive for Mac/Linux
- Q2 Datum Storage scalability enhancements
- Q2/Q3 DAT Staking
- Q2/Q3 Public Storage Nodes, anyone can run a storage node on mainnet
What was built so far and where can I find it?
- Datum Drive Cloud storage that appears as disk drive in Windows, just like Dropbox or Google Drive
- Datum Wallet App for iOS and Android (please do not transfer your ERC20 DAT token from Ethereum to here, this wallet is meant for DAT on the Datum Blockchain, there is no need for you to transfer your DAT)
- Tidymail.io Free tool from Datum that scans your email inbox (in your browser, we don’t have access to your emails) for spam and newsletters and allows you to bulk delete and unsubscribe.
- Datum Blockchain Explorers Blockchain explorers for Datum mainnet and Datum testnet (explorer.megatron.datum.org)
- Datum Transaction Broker High Speed transaction gateway for mass submitting transactions to Ethereum compatible Blockchains
- Datum SDK for Javascript SDK allowing developers to store and retrieve data from Datum Storage. Soon also available for C#
- Datum Storage Node Run a storage node for the Datum network, currently on testnet only for public. See here for more info.
- Datum Blockchain Bridge Tool allowing transfer of DAT from Ethereum Blockchain to Datum Blockchain (note there is no need for anyone outside of developers to use this currently).
- Datum Github Source Code for various Datum projects
- Various other projects: Datum S3 compatible storage gateway (allows use of Datum Storage by legacy software supporting the AWS S3 API, Datum Data Marketplace demo, Datum DApps running inside Datum Wallet
What will the future bring?
We continue to believe that there is space in the market for decentralized file/data storage solutions. IPFS is currently the largest project in this space but we believe there is ample room for competitors with slightly different approaches that are needed for certain use cases. As such we continue investing into development of Datum Storage as a viable alternative.
The awareness of personal data being collected and privacy issues has sky rocketed in the last few years, however little has happened so far. We think this awareness will drive further demand from people for more ethical data storage and we believe Datum can play a role. The tech stack still has to mature but it is a stepping stone.
The value of your data: Our data continues to be exploited by a few large companies that dominate the data trading landscape. As it becomes easier to protect and attribute data we believe data sources will demand more participation, this includes us as individuals and all the data collected from us.
