4 ms·

Blockchain data storage startup Storj recieves $100k grant funding

67 points by pcs 10y ago

zherbert 10y ago
https://thecontrol.co/meet-sia-a-user-owned-amazon-s3-challenger-that-lets-you-rent-out-your-extra-disk-space-fa9da6ff9223#.vmk4awfu2 https://thecontrol.co/meet-sia-a-user-owned-amazon-s3-challe...
- super3 10y ago
  Don't they only store 50 TB of data to Storj's 2,000 TB?
  - zherbert 10y ago
    No, store as much as you want, only about $1/TB/month.
hossbeast 10y ago
No information at all about the company or their product
- 010a 10y ago
  That information is pretty easily available.
- pcs 10y ago
  https://storj.io/ https://storj.io/
arisAlexis 10y ago
this is a very small funding. I like the project but this pays what, one dev for a year?
- super3 10y ago
  Potential for more more follow on funding. Certainly doesn't hurt.
blunte 10y ago
Until you can educate the public (and ISPs) on the importance of upload speeds, this will be crippled. I constantly meet people who cannot understand why their upload of some video is taking forever when they have 30Mbps internet. Send them to speedtest.net or another bandwidth tester, and you find that their download speed may be 20+Mbps, but their up speed is 1Mbps or less. And since saturating your upstream connection results in dramatic slowdowns and software pauses due to network waits, people will quickly blame Storj for ruining their internet. Incidentally, the "How does it work?" video on the storj site does not tell how it works; it's just a typical zero-substance ad.
- super3 10y ago
  How it works would be at the bottom of the page labeled whitepaper (https://storj.io/storj.pdf https://storj.io/storj.pdf), or you could have clicked on the link labeled Github (https://github.com/Storj/ https://github.com/Storj/) to look at the code. Storj is a direct competitor to Amazon S3. We don't have to educate the public, just the developers that need to store data somewhere.
  - blunte 10y ago
    Yes, I did already scan the whitepaper. The point is that there is no real information in the video that they title "How does it work?" And if they are in fact targeting developers, then the video makes even less sense as devs will be far less impressed than laypeople.
    - super3 10y ago
      27-30sec show the upload process and security, 45-51 sec down the download process and speed. The middle of the video describes the encryption process. I disagree that its devoid of how does it work, but sure I could see someone wanted more info in the video. What do you suggest needs to be included?
- buzzybee 10y ago
  That never stopped Bittorrent.
coldcode 10y ago
Why is a grant of $100K even a story? Pet vacation startups seem to be able to attract $20M, so this seems sort of nothing.
- wheelerwj 10y ago
  other people disagree. If you don't want to hear about it, hide it.
  - gnodar 10y ago
    It's a valid question. There have been lots of grants given out for Blockchain applications. I'm curious why this particular one is receiving attention from Hacker News. For example earlier this year DHS awarded 6 separate companies for Blockchain solutions[0], each of which were awarded $100,000. Some of them will probably move on to phase 2 and receive $800,000. [0]:https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/news/2016/06/07/dhs-st-announces-3m-sbir-awards https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/news/2016/06/07/d...
    - wheelerwj 10y ago
      its Saturday, there isn't much else going on, it was 100k from a state agency, in Utah no less, i mean.. why not? some people are into it.
      - elcritch 10y ago
        The Utah part is definitely interesting. Plus, it's interesting to hear about non-"big VC" funding. A grant of this size for a small business could help stabilize payroll for several devs, e.g. it can have a decent multiplier effect.
  - hncommenter_ 10y ago
    why? let's complain!
    - 10y ago
coldcode 10y ago
Why is a grant of $100K even a story? Pet vacation startups seem to be able to attract $20M, so this seems sort of nothing.
milansuk 10y ago
I'm just wondering If I rent my storage, will it cover cost of electricity and HW amortization on average? Or will I lose money?
- edraferi 10y ago
  They idea is to make use of unused storage capacity in existing machines, rather than standing up new ones just for Storj. The electrical cost should be minimal if your computer already stays on most of the time. That said, I haven't seen hard numbers on the background compute load and associated marginal increase in power consumption. Shouldn't be anything close to the CPU-Hard task of Bitcoin mining though.
  - milansuk 10y ago
    Thanks, I found this article which says that you can actually make a profit: http://blog.storj.io/post/110416906278/how-much-will-i-make-from-driveshare http://blog.storj.io/post/110416906278/how-much-will-i-make-...
altoz 10y ago
I'm not sure how this is a story. This startup has been around since at least 2014: https://cointelegraph.com/tags/storj https://cointelegraph.com/tags/storj $100k of funding after 3 years of development doesn't really seem newsworthy.
- super3 10y ago
  While we are excited we got the grant I kinda agree. Our stuff like the whitepaper (https://storj.io/storj.pdf https://storj.io/storj.pdf) or KFS (http://blog.storj.io/post/150825969108/introducing-kfs-a-local-file-store-inspired-by http://blog.storj.io/post/150825969108/introducing-kfs-a-loc...), allowing you to scale LevelDB past 100GB, are way cooler and more relevant to Hacker News.
kristianp 10y ago
So if I hook up a 1tb harddrive to this network,how much can I earn?

67 points by pcs 10y ago

https://thecontrol.co/meet-sia-a-user-owned-amazon-s3-challenger-that-lets-you-rent-out-your-extra-disk-space-fa9da6ff9223#.vmk4awfu2 https://thecontrol.co/meet-sia-a-user-owned-amazon-s3-challe...

super3 10y ago
Don't they only store 50 TB of data to Storj's 2,000 TB?
- zherbert 10y ago
  No, store as much as you want, only about $1/TB/month.

hossbeast 10y ago

No information at all about the company or their product

010a 10y ago
That information is pretty easily available.
pcs 10y ago
https://storj.io/ https://storj.io/

arisAlexis 10y ago

this is a very small funding. I like the project but this pays what, one dev for a year?

super3 10y ago
Potential for more more follow on funding. Certainly doesn't hurt.

blunte 10y ago

Until you can educate the public (and ISPs) on the importance of upload speeds, this will be crippled. I constantly meet people who cannot understand why their upload of some video is taking forever when they have 30Mbps internet. Send them to speedtest.net or another bandwidth tester, and you find that their download speed may be 20+Mbps, but their up speed is 1Mbps or less. And since saturating your upstream connection results in dramatic slowdowns and software pauses due to network waits, people will quickly blame Storj for ruining their internet. Incidentally, the "How does it work?" video on the storj site does not tell how it works; it's just a typical zero-substance ad.

super3 10y ago
How it works would be at the bottom of the page labeled whitepaper (https://storj.io/storj.pdf https://storj.io/storj.pdf), or you could have clicked on the link labeled Github (https://github.com/Storj/ https://github.com/Storj/) to look at the code. Storj is a direct competitor to Amazon S3. We don't have to educate the public, just the developers that need to store data somewhere.
- blunte 10y ago
  Yes, I did already scan the whitepaper. The point is that there is no real information in the video that they title "How does it work?" And if they are in fact targeting developers, then the video makes even less sense as devs will be far less impressed than laypeople.
  - super3 10y ago
    27-30sec show the upload process and security, 45-51 sec down the download process and speed. The middle of the video describes the encryption process. I disagree that its devoid of how does it work, but sure I could see someone wanted more info in the video. What do you suggest needs to be included?
buzzybee 10y ago
That never stopped Bittorrent.

coldcode 10y ago

Why is a grant of $100K even a story? Pet vacation startups seem to be able to attract $20M, so this seems sort of nothing.

wheelerwj 10y ago
other people disagree. If you don't want to hear about it, hide it.
- gnodar 10y ago
  It's a valid question. There have been lots of grants given out for Blockchain applications. I'm curious why this particular one is receiving attention from Hacker News. For example earlier this year DHS awarded 6 separate companies for Blockchain solutions[0], each of which were awarded $100,000. Some of them will probably move on to phase 2 and receive $800,000. [0]:https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/news/2016/06/07/dhs-st-announces-3m-sbir-awards https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/news/2016/06/07/d...
  - wheelerwj 10y ago
    its Saturday, there isn't much else going on, it was 100k from a state agency, in Utah no less, i mean.. why not? some people are into it.
    - elcritch 10y ago
      The Utah part is definitely interesting. Plus, it's interesting to hear about non-"big VC" funding. A grant of this size for a small business could help stabilize payroll for several devs, e.g. it can have a decent multiplier effect.
- hncommenter_ 10y ago
  why? let's complain!
  - 10y ago

coldcode 10y ago

Why is a grant of $100K even a story? Pet vacation startups seem to be able to attract $20M, so this seems sort of nothing.

milansuk 10y ago

I'm just wondering If I rent my storage, will it cover cost of electricity and HW amortization on average? Or will I lose money?

edraferi 10y ago
They idea is to make use of unused storage capacity in existing machines, rather than standing up new ones just for Storj. The electrical cost should be minimal if your computer already stays on most of the time. That said, I haven't seen hard numbers on the background compute load and associated marginal increase in power consumption. Shouldn't be anything close to the CPU-Hard task of Bitcoin mining though.
- milansuk 10y ago
  Thanks, I found this article which says that you can actually make a profit: http://blog.storj.io/post/110416906278/how-much-will-i-make-from-driveshare http://blog.storj.io/post/110416906278/how-much-will-i-make-...

altoz 10y ago

I'm not sure how this is a story. This startup has been around since at least 2014: https://cointelegraph.com/tags/storj https://cointelegraph.com/tags/storj $100k of funding after 3 years of development doesn't really seem newsworthy.

super3 10y ago
While we are excited we got the grant I kinda agree. Our stuff like the whitepaper (https://storj.io/storj.pdf https://storj.io/storj.pdf) or KFS (http://blog.storj.io/post/150825969108/introducing-kfs-a-local-file-store-inspired-by http://blog.storj.io/post/150825969108/introducing-kfs-a-loc...), allowing you to scale LevelDB past 100GB, are way cooler and more relevant to Hacker News.

kristianp 10y ago

So if I hook up a 1tb harddrive to this network,how much can I earn?