In 2009, the concept of blockchain began to emerge from the leading Internet technology community. After 12 years, it has become another data processing method that is extremely complex and is in parallel with the Internet. The distributed underlying structure provides the most basic technology for central bank digital currencies (CBDC’s) being developed by central banks.
At present, the development of blockchain technology has gone through three stages:
1. Solving the point-to-point value interaction represented by Bitcoin (BTC);
2. Establishing the integration of cryptocurrency and the Internet with smart contracts through Ethereum and;
3. Filecoin being representative of the potential data storage applications of blockchain integrated on web 3.0.
At present, all the blockchain projects around the world are moving forward in realizing the beautiful vision that has been brought forward by the founding projects. However, there is no project that can realize the full business potential of blockchain and reflect business values except for De-Fi and NFT’s. The reason is that they are limited by the current limited capacity of blockchain technology.
The most basic design concept of blockchain is decentralization. At present, the biggest technical problem of decentralization is performance. If Blockchain technology is to mature and achieve commercial value, the performance problems of decentralization must be solved.
The performance of decentralization includes three aspects:
1. Transaction performance,
2. Storage performance and;
3. Data distribution performance.
All blockchain applications rely on these three basic aspects however the performance limitations of these three aspects mean that almost all blockchain projects can only stay in the vision stage.
Global distributed storage market
According to Data Bridge’s forecast, the cloud storage market size is expected to reach $272.22 billion USD by 2027, with a comprehensive growth rate of 24.41%. In 2018, the global public cloud market reached US $136.3 billion, with a growth rate of 23%. The average market growth rate for the coming years is approximately 24% annually.
Global public cloud market size of year 2016-2022 (unit: Billion USD)
Compared to enterprise-level storage and cloud storage, the advantages of blockchain based distributed storage are primarily reflected in the following aspects:
• Higher reliability. Blockchain storage successfully avoids a single point of failure.
• Higher availability. The blockchain only needs to have a certain quantity of nodes so as the blockchain based application fully functions.
• Lower cost of storage. The blockchain allocates the storage cost to the edge nodes. Compared to building an independent data storage centre, the demand for hardware is lower and subsequently the costs are lower.
• Higher privacy of encryption. The encryption process is executed by the data owner itself. As long as the owner keeps the encryption key, the data cannot be stolen by a third party.
Blockchain based storage has advantages over traditional cloud storage in terms of data privacy, transparency and rights confirmation. Plus, the data storage market is growing rapidly so blockchain based storage industry has sufficient potential to support future growth.
The industry urgently needs perfect file access protocol
At present, whether for NFT’s or the metaverse, decentralized data storage and distribution are the most basic constraints.
Imagine if the metaverse was created by a single company, then that company would be the Lord of the digital realm. This solution is not to the benefit of all mankind. Meanwhile, the 3D scene of the metaverse will need a very large storage space and bandwidth capacity.
The performance of the current decentralized storage system, whether IPFs protocol or SWARM protocol do not meet the requirement of real-time play of ordinary video, let alone the needs of entire metaverse. Therefore, without efficient data storage and distribution solutions, these decentralized applications can only exist in an imaginary vision, not a reality.
In addition, all current decentralized storage solutions and protocols do not have any protection mechanisms for the data stored in the system. Currently, any node in the system can access any data of the system content without authorization.
The lack of this protection mechanism makes these solutions unable to achieve a commercial quality closed-loop. Commercial applications, even decentralized commercial applications, need to be provided with an authorized access mechanism on the storage system. Only in such a system can the content producer store the data into the system and obtain revenue through sales.
In another aspect, the current decentralized storage solutions lack the basic functions such as fault detection and automatic data recovery that professional file systems must have. The lack of these functions is also the reason why these solutions are appearing more in academic research however currently they cannotmeet the actual needs of industry and commerce.
Only a storage system that meets the requirements of industrial and commercial data storage needs and supports a commercial quality closed-loop is the system that can truly dominate the decentralized storage industry in the future.
AuroraFS (Aurora blockchain cloud) solution The final piece of the puzzle
The AuroraFS solution is the final piece of the puzzle in realizing the application of blockchain.
The AuroraFS blockchain cloud dynamically caches the content to be distributed through the system nodes, and the client can access the data on the nodes as close as possible, which realizes high-performance access;
• The point-to-point traffic billing capability and the traffic-verifiable computing solution enables each node in the system to obtain corresponding rewards according to the bandwidth provided, so that the system can be built in a decentralized manner;
• The authorization-based access control feature enables business data to be safely stored in the AuroraFS blockchain cloud, in which only participants can access the data, realizing a business quality closedloop system.
The other two basic performance problems of blockchain, namely, transaction performance and storage performance are solved by the Gauss chain developed by our laboratory. The Gauss chain realizes full sharding technology and is the only blockchain to solve fragments communication bandwidth in combination with the security that sharding provides. It is the first blockchain project to realize high decentralization (The heaviest load bandwidth requirement of thenode in the system is less than 5Mbp/s, which can be achieved by using a home PC), and high TPS (A single fragment is 100 TPS and the whole network is 100,000+ TPS). The project will be shown to the world during the second phase of the AuroraFS cloud testing.
The rewardability, high-performance and authorized access features of the AuroraFS blockchain cloud enables it to have the ability to connect bandwidth devices all over the world to form a globally shared high-performance decentralized network and become an infrastructure of data storage and distribution carrying NFT’s, GameFi, the metaverse and any blockchain application in the future.
Because of its high-performance access, it can meet the actual user needs of real-time streaming media. The bandwidth oriented economic incentive enables the AuroraFS blockchain cloud to be built in a decentralized manner. With authorized system access, the AuroraFS blockchain cloud can achieve a decentralized businessquality closed-loop system.
The Beta network will be launched on October 5,2021
The exciting moment is coming. The last piece of the puzzle for blockchain application will be filled right as the blockchain industry is entering a period of vigorous development! The preliminary construction of the AuroraFS project has been completed and all the technical solutions have been verified. It will unveil its mysterious veil to the world on October 5 and start public beta testing.
The public beta will be divided into three stages:
1. Free evaluation stage: Anyone can download the source code, compile nodes, upload and download files, broadcast video in real time, to test the performance and charm of AuroraFS cloud.
2. Content distribution function display stage: Participating in the beta network to experience the high-performance access, decentralized website hosting and the closed-loop commercial application of AuroraFS blockchain. Application developers can try to develop completely decentralized applications with the SDK and bandwidth providers can experience how to provide storage to obtain reward income. At this stage, there will be free coins to give to bandwidth providers.
3. Full platform display stage: Displaying completely decentralized high transaction performance, storage performance and data distribution performance, realizing a complete and breakthrough blockchain based platform. Application developers can develop their ideal decentralized applications based on this platform and do not need to worry about the performance problem that are associated with decentralization.
In conclusion, A small step for the AuroraFS blockchain cloud is a big step for blockchain. The blueprint for the next generation of the blockchain industry is here.
