💎 Is it time for TON Storage to shine?

⚫️ Back in 2022, we wrote about the launch of TON Storage, but at the time, the technology didn’t gain traction within the ecosystem. Now, however, home server owners are being invited to test a new utility called MyTonProvider, which is eventually intended to store the blockchain archive—paying users who provide storage space. So, what’s happening?

⚫️ To recap, the concept behind TON Storage is similar to torrents: files are stored in a distributed manner across many users. But there’s a key difference—TON Storage was designed with the idea that storage could be monetized in Toncoin. That is, some users could offer disk space for other people’s files and be compensated in return.

⚫️ The idea of a “distributed storage” system fits well with the decentralized nature of blockchain. In theory, the two can work hand-in-hand: for example, a project on TON might store its smart contracts on the blockchain while hosting its website files on TON Storage. However, in practice, most projects have opted for more traditional hosting solutions for their files.

⚫️ Now, though, there’s an interesting shift. As we recently reported, the overall size of the blockchain has grown so much that storing its entire history on "archive nodes" with expensive SSDs has become impractical. A new solution is being implemented: breaking the archive into parts for easier distributed storage.

⚫️ Home server owners with spare HDD space are now being invited to test the MyTonProvider utility, which allows them to “offer storage space” in TON Storage. It’s reported that in the future, “this will be one of the monetization methods,” and the blockchain archive will be split “into 4-gigabyte chunks” for storage.

💡 This suggests that TON Storage is about to be used in a new way—and that brings an interesting opportunity. Previously, only those who could afford multi-terabyte SSDs could store the blockchain archive. Now, even inexpensive servers with modest HDDs could participate (and potentially earn some income). Will this breathe new life into TON Storage? Time will tell.

@thedailyton