What’s different about WEB3 data? Decentralized Storage Decides the Key

With the rapid development of the Internet, all major platforms are laying out WEB3 and even non-insiders will chime in. But when we talk about data, the concept is still stuck in the WEB2 stage, so what does data look like in WEB3? And why should it be? What does it do for WEB3? Let’s explore each of these next.

Firstly we need to understand what data looks like in WEB2. In fact, data is broadly categorized as personal data, public data and corporate data. Most of this data is generated when we use computer applications on a daily basis, with personal data and corporate data being of immediate relevance to the average user. An internet product is divided into a front-end, a back-end and a database, with the lowest level of the database storing the data that comes from the back-end and is generated by the interaction between the user and the front-end. Broadly speaking, these are all user data. In terms of mobile applications, data can be divided into the following categories: user information, content data, behavioural data and log data.

Within this classification, user information is personal data, and log and code data are corporate data. The content data and behavioural data are worth discussing, as they were more often classified by centralized entities in the Web2 era as their own business data, i.e. corporate data.

In the case of WEB3 applications, there is little change compared to the WEB2 user terminal and front-end, the difference lies in the back-end and database. The user interacts with the node provider through the front-end, accessing the contract code laid out on a blockchain such as Ether and interacting with it. The process generates the same types of data as described above, but due to the differences in technical architecture, the data generated by Web3 is not stored by a centralized server, and there may be differences and similarities in the way the data is stored in different ways.

All data generated by smart contract interactions is published on the blockchain and can be accessed by anyone, making it a public good. Theoretically, any data can be stored on the blockchain as long as the blockchain block space is large enough. However the blockchain itself is not designed for storage, not only is it expensive to store data on the chain, but network congestion has led to a significant reduction in availability. So as the market continues to expand in demand, many powerful storage infrastructures have been created, such as IPFS, Filecoin, AR, MEMO and others. There are also more and more applications that have started to deploy themselves on top of decentralized storage.

So what is the significance of storing data this way for WEB3? In fact, the core is the sovereignty issue that WEB3 mentions every day, because sovereignty is the core of WEB3, and sovereignty generally includes data sovereignty and application sovereignty. Regarding data sovereignty, it includes digital asset sovereignty and user data sovereignty, like tokens can define the sovereignty of a user’s digital assets, such as which address a token is attributed to. But when it comes to more complex digital product rights ownership, there are many problems that arise, such as the storage of NFTs. Currently most NFTs are still stored on some centralized server, and if this server has a problem, then all the user has is a string of hashes on the chain, and the picture or video corresponding to the NFT will be lost. Another typical example of data sovereignty is SocialFi, where users own everything about the content they create, rather than a platform or company owning the data.

With regard to application sovereignty, some refer to sovereign applications as “superstructures”, which have characteristics such as being unstoppable, free, valuable, scalable and license-free — in short, the basic elements of a metaverse. The vast majority of current so-called Web3 applications have a low degree of application sovereignty, they are not truly public products and they can be easily sanctioned and changed by the powers that be, one of the main reasons is that although the contract code for the protocol layer of these applications is published on the blockchain, components such as front ends, domain names, etc. are still controlled by third party centralized entities.

So in order to achieve data sovereignty and application sovereignty, it is crucial that Web3 applications are built in such a way that their fundamental starting point is storage. Decentralized data storage is therefore inevitably the trend and, in general, depending on the type of data a user has, there can be different solutions.

-User’s asset information, and transaction data should be public ledger data, and storing on the chain to ensure verifiability is paramount

-User information, content data and behavioural data of the user as personal information, it is important to ensure the user’s control over their data, and with the consent of the user, these data can be optionally disclosed as public goods to exploit positive externalities.

-Log data and code data, as corporate data, are acceptable and necessary to be privatized, but when it comes to “super-building” Web3 infrastructure-type applications, which should have the characteristics of a public infrastructure, the storage of application code should be public and resistant to censorship beyond the platform level.

It must therefore rely on decentralized storage networks that can support large-scale and high-frequency commercial applications. MEMO is a new generation of large-scale decentralized storage system based on blockchain, capable of providing secure, efficient and large-scale storage services to users using massive global edge storage nodes, with a research and development team consisting of world-class experts, engineers and PhDs in the field of storage, who hold a number of exclusive patents in the field of storage.

MEMO is designed with high availability in mind. MEMO has made innovations in data tiering, data validation and data repair. The innovative data tiering mechanism has greatly improved storage utilization, and the innovative data validation and repair mechanisms not only make the data more secure, but also increase the speed of reading and repair in seconds.

We believe that MEMO will be able to provide a secure and reliable infrastructure when WEB3 arrives in full force.