Storj Labs

Decentralized cloud storage represents a fundamental shift in the effciency and economics of large-scale storage. Eliminating central control allows users to store and share data without reliance on a third-party storage provider. Decentralization mitigates the risk of data failures and outages while simultaneously increasing the security and privacy of object storage. It also allows market forces to optimize for less expensive storage at a greater rate than any single provider could afford. Although there are many ways to build such a system, there are some specific responsibilities any given implementation should address. Based on our experience with petabyte-scale storage systems, we introduce a modular framework for considering these responsibilities and for building our distributed storage network. Additionally, we describe an initial concrete implementation for the entire framework.

Storj, pronounced as “storage,” is an open-source cloud storage platform. Basically, it uses a decentralized network of nodes to host user data. The platform also secures hosted data using advanced encryption.

In a white paper published in December,2014, Storj was first introduced to the world as a concept. It was to be a decentralized peer-to-peer encrypted cloud storage platform.

Two years later, an updated white paper was published. Here, a decentralized network — connecting users who need cloud storage space with those who have hard drive space to sell — was described. The platform was launched in late 2018.

People with hard drive space and good internet connectivity can participate in the network. They become a unit in the network, called a node. Space providers are rewarded by Storj tokens.