Decentralized database provider Bluzelle is introducing its file storage solution on mainnet, offering a simple to use and resilient solution for “saving immutable files on decentralized storage,” according to an update shared with CI.
The solution is targeted for non-fungible token or NFT platforms, where the “boom of digital art and media highlighted the need for a flexible and unstoppable storage solution,” the announcement noted.
The release of file storage mainnet “marks Bluzelle’s transition from a raw data storage provider to becoming a hosting platform for all types of files that require high security, unmatched availability and censorship resistance,” the announcement added.
These features make Bluzelle the “ideal” platform to host content connected with NFTs, like 3D digital art pieces or video reels of key moments represented by the NFT.
Previous solutions for decentralized storage “carry a significant number of drawbacks related to usability and cost,” the announcement noted.
This includes “unnecessary” requirements of holding a virtual token, the requirement to pay separately for each new storage node in the network, and “slow and expensive file retrieval.”
There are also few guarantees of “continued file immutability in previous systems,” the update noted.
If the nodes that were chosen by the user failed to operate, the files “could be lost forever,” the announcement explained. This particular issue “concerns IPFS, currently the most widespread method for storing NFTs or Web3 data.” Data initially stored on IPFS is “saved on just one node — replicating the file carries significant additional costs and effort,” the announcement added.
With Bluzelle, data is stored “nearly simultaneously in all network nodes — requiring just about 10 seconds to be replicated in all global nodes — and with just one request from the user,” the update explained.
The concurrent design “produces significant performance gains for streaming large files, and frees the users from having to pay for additional speed,” the announcement noted.
Bluzelle uses a peer-to-peer architecture “similar to torrents, which means Bluzelle users download files from all 50+ nodes at once (a number expected to grow into the thousands as the network matures),” the update explained.
The efficient architecture means that Bluzelle “excels at uncensorable and resilient public file storage. One of the largest markets for this specific set of requirements is the NFT art ecosystem,” the announcement noted.
While rare, there are examples of NFTs stored on Amazon Web Services, which is “completely antithetical to the promise of an NFT as an immutable and uncensorable item.”
Pavel Bains, CEO of Bluzelle, stated:
“Time and time again in crypto we see solutions that are not as decentralized, not as secure or not as advanced become the norm. Why? Because people care about usability above all, and this factor will always trump any kind of ideological or ‘nice to have’ criteria. This is why our file storage solution aims to be decentralized without sacrificing usability. Too many engineers get lost in designing a cool piece of tech for its own sake, few of them care about how the end user will perceive it.”
The Bluzelle platform is being used by NFT marketplaces like Mintable. Several others are in the testing phase and will be “announced to the public in the near future,” the update confirmed.
What this means is that NFT buyers on these platforms may “feel confident in knowing the assets they bought will remain available forever thanks to the decentralized network of nodes built on Bluzelle’s infrastructure,” the update noted.
Zach Burks, Founder and CEO of Mintable, remarked:
“Most people are not aware that most NFTs will disappear in a year or more once either their website is taken offline, it gets censored, or if it’s on IPFS, it will just get deleted from lack of use. With Bluzelle we have a permanent file storage that is decentralized across the entire planet for your NFTs – so in 50 years, they will still be around and valuable. All without even needing to pay gas costs using gasless minting on Mintable.”