Storj IPFS Pinning Service for Decentralized NFT Storage

Storj Labs Inc. will offer pinning services using InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), a decentralized protocol.

It can be used for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) assets and other content addressable storage in dApps. Web3 Developers, who are building NFT minting platforms and dApps, will have a decentralized storage option that rivals centralized storage operator’s models ease of implementation and responsiveness.

Unlike many in the decentralized space, the company’s decentralized storage offering was designed to be enterprise grade, for both traditional and newer business critical applications. The firm’s service has not lost a single file in over 3 years of operations, and offers levels of performance, availability, and security that meet or exceed that offered by the centralized cloud providers, attracting a range of more traditional users, such as video services, backup providers, and data scientists.

NFTs need permanent, performant storage
NFTs are at the forefront in driving long-term, decentralized storage requirements, because NFT owners and creators want their NFTs to have permanence, immutability, and resistance to tampering. While IPFS has emerged as a standard for providing many of those capabilities, it assures neither the quality of the underlying providers nor that of the underlying storage is decentralized. Combining IPFS content addressing with the company’s DCS delivers on the complete vision.

It is estimated that over 60% of digital data – scientific research, human knowledge, and artworks – is lost just a year after creation. (source: Stand the Test of Time). Specifically, 55% of NFTs use Web 2.0 traditional location-based links that are fungible and subject to inaccessibility, altering, and attacks. While using IPFS solves immutability and decentralization, it isn’t a complete storage solution. Already, 5% of NFTs are unavailable (source). Combining Storj with IPFS gives NFTs both the confidence that they cannot be modified or removed, while also ensuring they will always be available. The firm ’s vision is building a complete pinning and storage solution where users can leverage the inherent benefits of the decentralized cloud as well as add permanence to their pins, and fast access.

“The NFT movement has grown substantially, and creating and minting new NFTs across various blockchains is a killer app for blockchain technology, platform companies and artists alike,” said Ben Golub, CEO. “However, the storage of these NFT assets has either high costs on centralized traditional storage, or are not reliably accessible on emerging decentralized options. Storj bridges Web 2.0 performance expectations with Web3 decentralization.”

How it works with IPFS for NFT long-term, trusted storage
The company enables developers to either upload to IPFS and generate a content address (CID) using their existing tools, or use the firm’ HTTP->IPFS upload endpoint. Once they have a CID, they can pin that CID via a smart contract. This gives visibility, permanence, and transparency to the stored content. The IPFS pinning service packages and stores the content on DCS with its global network of over 13,500 nodes in 100+ countries, providing assurance that the data pinned is durable in the face of data center fires, environmental disasters, and geopolitical unrest. Unlike other solutions which pin content on traditional centralized storage providers or use fungible, location-based links, Storj is decentralized and immutable. The IPFS pinning service is reliable, permanent over long-term, and fast to retrieve and share. Additionally, for traditional Web 2.0 applications that don’t support IPFS CID directly, the company provides a high throughput dedicated IPFS http gateway.

Call for beta users
The firm is launching this service at Dev Connect and ETH Amsterdam, as an exclusive beta for Web3 developers. Using a simple cURL command, developers can pin and store NFTs, images, videos or any files on the decentralized cloud for persistent and immutable long-term storage that’s secure, always available, sustainable and economical.

Join beta program to get early access to a developer experience that builds on the power of decentralization.