Ledger, the hardware and software security company focused on crypto and Web3, recently revealed that they’ve integrated Filecoin into Ledger Live Desktop.
Ledger explained that Filecoin is powering a “decentralized” Internet “where storage is owned and operated by its users.”
We just integrated @Filecoin into Ledger Live Desktop!
Want to learn more about how Filecoin operates, and how it’s powering a decentralized Internet where storage is owned and operated by its users?
Check out this article 👉 https://t.co/lcMjFsrWeR pic.twitter.com/b0KTtBHJMc
— Ledger (@Ledger) August 24, 2022
As noted in a blog post, Filecoin is “the blockchain project that incentivizes regular people to rent out their digital storage space – solving the issue of scarcity, and addressing power imbalance between individuals and global server behemoths, in one fell swoop.”
Even though we can’t make our VR selves go to work instead of us (yet), our lives “are more digital than we’d like to admit.” The Ledger team added that it’s difficult “to imagine life without your daily morning Instagram scroll, Zoom calls.”
These digital lifestyles “generate data — lots of it.”
In fact, our current storage systems are “absolutely drowning in data, with 79 zettabytes consumed on the Internet in 2021.” That’s 21 zeroes after 79 — “roughly about 79 billion laptops, with a 1 TB storage capacity each.”
What’s more: this number is “expected to double within 5 years.”
Even though these numbers paint a picture of an internet too big to fathom, the reality it’s just “a handful of companies providing all of the storage, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and IBM, to name a few.” There are a number of reasons “why this is not ideal, and it all revolves around our tricky old friend, centralization.”
For starters, outages are “common in Web2.” If you were to Google “social media outages and why they happen”, you’ll be greeted with a variety of reasons “ranging from technical changes to hacker attacks.”
Even simple errors can “cause an outage: for example, one well-intentioned command from an engineer recently disconnected Facebook from its 3.5 billion users for over 6 hours.” That’s what happens when so much data is “controlled by a single authority — small mistakes can cause major disruptions to millions of users and businesses.”
If outages weren’t enough, you also have into “the issue of censorship.” If a website talks about something controversial that people with big wallets don’t want others to talk about, it can be promptly “dealt” with by the provider, “in other words – switched off.” Since everyone knows where the data for the site is hosted, it’s “easy for governments AND hackers to target such websites.”
And finally, we have the basic “issue of supply and demand.” With more and more things going digital, internet storage is in limited supply, “meaning the price of data storage is likely to inflate.”
On the flip side, what if the companies controlling your data decide it’s no longer economically viable “to keep their service online? What will happen to your data then? Worse — what if the data you stored is shared without your consent with third parties?”
In short, whether you’re looking at data storage through the prism of cost, control, privacy or simple reliability, the centralized nature of our internet servers “has big implications for users like you and me.” And that’s why new blockchain-based network Filecoin is “so important for offering us an alternative.”
For more details, check here.
A covered earlier this year, The Sandbox, a “decentralized” gaming metaverse and a subsidiary of Animoca Brands, and Ledger, had partnered “to bring Ledger’s best-in-class security technology to The Sandbox’s global user base.”
The partnership will “empower The Sandbox’s 2.2 million registered users with essential security, support, and best practices, as well as engage Ledger’s millions of users in over 180 countries to secure their metaverse holdings.”