Post
Topic
Board Announcements (Altcoins)
Re: [ANN] Sia - Decentralized Storage
by
Hakkane
on 27/11/2017, 01:49:13 UTC
I gave up mining SIA a while back (and switched to a non storage based coin) simply because, I don't see a future for it. I can't see any large company wanting to go through the hassle (and risks) of exchanging cash for SIA then using it to buy storage. Currency fluctuations can have big effects on profitability (Lots of UK businesses after Brexit have seen profits squeezed, or even wiped out after GBP took a dive) Why would a large company already at risk of currency fluctuations increase that risk by also getting involved with crypto markets, and with something as important / essential as storage?

With high speed networks, falling SSD prices (and increasing capacities) along with super reliable HDD's does SIA really have a large scale customer out there? Perhaps content creators could find a use for SIA as an alternative back up space - but the likes of a large multinational with huge storage requirements would probably already have their own facilities in place. Honestly, I don't see enough small scale users to make up the difference.

So, that's why I got out - I don't think the demand will ever match the supply. I think it's important to have faith in any project you're investing in (whether it's buying coins or using resources to mine them, it all counts as an investment!) - I have a great deal of respect for all those who do believe that there's a future for SIA - perhaps you can see something I can't... (or maybe you are just smarter than me!) - however, for me - I think there are better options out there.

I think you are missing some points here.

  • The storage pricing does not correlate with the value of the coin: hosts select their own pricing and they adjust it to fixed dollar values. For example, during the price rally of May-June, even if the coin went up 50x, the storage pricing remained under $2/TB/month. Currently the price is $1/TB/month (https://siastats.info/storage_pricing.html). If a company buys Sia on the go instead of provisioning a large amount for the following years, they will be paying the same amount in fiat all the time
  • Final users are not the target of Sia. The goal is that storage providers (new ones or current ones that embrace Sia) use Sia as their storage layer. That way, they can offer storage plans paid by fixed fiat rates, while they do all the Sia conversion behind the scenes. Siacdn.com for instance uses this model
  • The pricing is the biggest reason to adopt Sia. Currently Sia storage is $1/TB/month. AmazonS3 is $23/Tb/month. Bandwidth costs are 100x cheaper in Sia. No traditional storage provider can compete with that, because they want to make huge profits with the overhead costs (small wonder AWS ahs those figures of benefits), while in a storage marketplace like Sia, hosts compete for cheaper rates, having very small margins (while still profitable). Big companies paying thousands of dollars per month in storage can greatly reduce their bills with Sia once is ready for the prime time.
  • Traditional storage solutions do not include native encryption and decentralization. No government can shut-down your data in Sia. No storage company can spy your data in Sia because it is decentralized and no individual host has access to enough data to reconstruct the files