Up and Coming #2: Siacoin
8 questions answered about a coin which might be a good buy today: Siacoin.
@tj4real pointed out that he believes that Siacoin is the best next pick for decentralized cloud storage and wanted to know my opinion about this coin. Personally I heard and read a lot about it and I do believe in the concept. Why didn't I buy it? I guess because the are multiple companies working on decentralized cloud storage and I never took the time to see which one is the best.
1. What is the current price of one token?
$0.0134 for 1 Siacoin
2. What is the total amount of tokens?
Siacoin (SC) has built-in inflation and so differs from other crypto's like Bitcoin. Inflation basically means that there is no fixed supply cap and new coins can be generated, and so brought in circulation, by mining or staking.
3. Can more Siacoin be mined?
Yes, Siacoin rewards an X amount after each block.
- Initial block reward: 300,000 Siacoin
- Block 2 reward: 299,999 Siacoin
- ... one Siacoin deducted from the reward each block
- Block 269,999 reward: 30,001
- Block 270,000 reward: 30,000
- Every block after Block 270,000 will have a reward of: 30,000 Siacoin.
4. What is the current marketcap?
$367,095,671 (Number 17).
5. What is Sia(coin)?
Sia conceived at MIT in 2013 to see if it was possible to take advantage of all the unused storage space in the world and combine it into a worldwide free market for data. Today the major players in storage space, like Amazon AWS, Dropbox and Google drive, are still hosting everything on central servers like they where in 2013. Sia aims to change this by setting up a decentralized cloud storage program on which users can mine, contribute, rent storage and earn for renting out unused storage space. It makes use of blockchain technology to enable distributed networks to reach consensus. Sia's smart contracts, which are cryptographically secured, will transfer and encrypt data making it impossible for anyone else to retrieve that data or interfere in any way. The cryptocurrency used by Sia to enable decentralized payment via file contract is Siacoin.
Sia's business model is not to create their own data storage company like Microsoft, Google and Amazon. It is rather aiming to be the backbone storage layer of the internet by allowing anyone to host their own decentralized cloud. Sia's code is open sourced and so anyone can built on it. However, indirectly Sia will be competing with the 3 storage giants as on paper Sia is a much better alternative than any centralized data storage company that is out there at the moment. Each company on the Sia platform will charge their users independently in Siacoin as this is the only currency used on the platform. Sia itself will not be the one accepting payments.
Do note that there is a second crypto called Siafund. Anyone holding a siafund is entitled to his share of the '3.9% of all successfull payouts storage contract payouts'. All 10,000 Siafunds are in circulation of which Nebulous Inc. holds around 8,750. The other 1,350 were sold in a crowdfund to finance the development of Sia at it's early stages.
6. How can I purchase and store Siacoin?
On their main website you can download the wallet software after which you can purchase Siacoin and buy data storage space. You will also be able to rent out and unused hard drive space and earn Siacoin from it.
7. Who is in the team behind Siacoin?
The founders of Sia are David Vorick and Luke Champine of Nebulous Inc. which is a VC-funded startup in Boston. There is not a lot of information to be found about these two individuals. David Vorick seems to occasionally be the one to show his face in the media. The VC that funded Nebulous Inc. also seems to be legitimate so there is no need to worry about a scam.
We believe data should be free. We aim to liberate the unused bits of the world and construct the largest storage superserver on the planet.
8. Buy it or not?
Spreading data over a whole network of devices that have unused storage space is a better solution then the way data is stored nowadays as it's faster, cheaper and safer.
- Cheaper as each file is split into multiple peaces and spread over the network of unused (rented out) hard drive space.
- Safer as each piece is encrypted and even if they get their hold on it and encrypt it it is useless for anyone without the other pieces.
- By using many hosts to store a single file means that downloads can be massively parallel and so much faster than before. As it is a decentralized network users can also be given the option to choose hosts in their area and that are the fastest instead of the other side of the world.
As all the data is open sourced technically Microsoft, Google and Amazon could all expand or move their data storage to the Sia platform. If Sia can get some big names to use their platform to built an app or sell storage space on the coin can explode. As using Sia means you need to own Siacoin, it's price will go up as the usage of Sia grows (considering it grows faster than the inflation). Therefore when people massively start storing data for billions of dollars on Sia they will also need billions of dollars in Siacoin. However, at the moment there is competition out there who have given their own twist to the concept of decentralized data storage like Storj, Filecoin (IPFS) and Maidsafe. At the moment I don't know enough about these companies to say which one is best or if they are a threat to Sia but I can dedicate the following 'Up and Coming' series to analyzing them and answer those questions.
Thank you for reading, please share your thought and don't hesitate to leave a comment, follow me or upvote my posts!
Sources
http://sia.tech/
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Thanks for the introduction. Seems that sia coin is a good buy given its prospects as its advantage is easy to be understood. Though I have a concern about its liquidity, how do you see it in that aspect? If it's liquid and the prosepcts is good, it's certainly a great investment opportunity
Thanks for taking my comment serious and exploring into this coin. I believe it's potential and time will be seen very soon. Nice article. Keep up the good work and you will soon become a whale
Haha I hope I will become a whale! The concept is great and I will invest in the concept of decentralized storage but not sure which coin yet. Did you take a look at the others?
From the little i know, They all provide similar services with different method of approach and each has its strong hold. Sia is not a big mouth coin. Storj makes a lot of fuzz but from my trusted sources, Sia will be implemented very soon. And it will be left with mainstream adoption to propel exponential growth. They can all survive due to their different approach to the market. But the question, which of them will be adopted mainstream?
Sia it is then! FOMO got the best of me again ;).
The only issue i have with Sia is their recent announcement to produce and sell asic miners next year. The fact that Nebulous incs' parent company is a chip manufacturer who will be producing these asic miners doesn't seem right to me.
I have a good stock of siacoin i'll be sitting on but as we get closer to the release of the asic miner i will probably sell and buy again if the price dips after release.
Good read, keep it up!
Thanks for you reply and adding some valuable information to this post. I will keep that in mind!
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Yeah @locos I also think Sia is one of those startups around the blockchain that is goin to make it.
Good article. If the coin is going up as a result of its demand/use, especially by an Amazon or other service subbing out the work, then how does the automatic inflation of the number of coins work? Is it just keyed to staking and mining and what prevents miners from expanding the number of coins infinitely driving the price per coin down to next-to-nothing? Don't get me wrong - I'm hardly a basher since I have 100k+ of Sia coins, I just don't understand the expansion of the number of coins based on anything other than mining and staking...
Thankk you @cpalawyer for your reply. Well the reward for each block will eventually be 30,000 Siacoin. At the moment they are paying 188,278 a bock as a rewards meaning we are at block 112,722. Still a long way to go before we reach 30,000 a block and currently there are 27.28 billion Siacoin. As long as demand is higher then the inflation amount there is nothing to worry about. Keep checking https://explore.sia.tech/ and you will see if demand for Sia is increasing or its just the coins. Under question 3 you will see how it works. Hope this answers all. if not let me know.
good info - going to check it now on bittrex
Thanks! Don't put in too much money and by doing so pushing the price up as I still need to buy ;)
I posted a similar article earlier today, there's lots of big things coming up at the moment and in the next few months for Sia. I'm very bullish on the prospects!
Yes it does have a lot of potential and the price is very interesting after the last two days. Good moment to get in if you believe in Siacoin.
Thanks for filling me in through this post on some things. I also have Sia in my crypto portfolio. What I would like to add here is that Sia is actually much much cheaper than other solutions I've seen. Even for professional use it is a factor 5X-10X cheaper per TB storage. Interesting!
Yes, I forgot to add some information I found about that. Not sure how accurate it is but, like you said, it is a lot cheaper. Which also makes sense as you don't need to have a massive data storage facility.
And I will upvote your comment in the days to come. Just trying to reach close to 100% again. Thanks for adding some info to this post!
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