Storage Provider Economics
Let’s dive into the nitty-gritty of BNB Greenfield’s storage economics.
Clients in BNB Greenfield have an owner’s address, also known as their ‘Client-ID’, which is the unique identifier associated with the data they own. Each Client-ID has its own payment accounts.
Think of the Client-ID as the parent and the payment accounts as the children.Now, there are three main categories of fees charged to run the data economy.
The first is the transaction fees, which will be paid whenever the users send transactions to create/delete objects, change permissions, and call cross-chain operations. These fees will be paid to the validators (and relayers for the cross-chain) of the Greenfield blockchain and their delegators.
The second is the data storage fees that users pay for the payload data stored by the Storage Providers off-chain. The fees are calculated using a “Stream Pay Model” according to the time and size of the data stored. The Primary Storage Provider will take most of this part of fees as it provides the whole copy of the data and supports downloading, while the Secondary Storage Providers take the residual.
The third is the data transfer package fees that users pay for extra downloading data bandwidth. Every stored object has a free quota to download, but users have to pay for the extra if the owner expects the data to be downloaded more times than the quota. This fee is taken by the Primary Storage
The validators, Primary Storage Providers(PSP), and Secondary Storage Providers(SSP) jointly provide services to the end users, and charge fees in a decentralized way, which is the fundamental economics of Greenfield.
BNB Greenfield Data Economics
Once the Genesis block of the BNB Greenfield chain is validated and a sufficient number of Storage Providers (SP) is available, all clients will go through a standardized process to start using BNB Greenfield’s storage services:
- A client can start using an account on the BNB Greenfield chain by simply generating a private/public key pair and the corresponding Ethereum compatible address.
- The client will upload a data object by picking an PSP, which will automatically create their first data bucket. This process will go through two phases:
Request Phase: A client will write, i.e. upload, the data they want to store, automatically create a request to BNB Greenfield chain to accept the request, lock the fee on-chain, and then end the request. A fee is determined by the storage provider, which will vary depending on where and how the PSP chooses to store data. A client will have to have a sufficient amount of BNB token deposited in order to secure storage services from their chosen PSP.
Seal Phase: Once the request is locked, the client establishes a primary connection to their storage provider and authenticates the uploading phase. The PSP signs off to authorize and confirm the data transfer by syncing with their SSP network to seal or cancel the upload. If the upload is canceled, the PSP may be slashed. If it is successful, the data is sealed and the upload process is finished.
3. BNB Greenfield’s system automatically links the necessary accounts to the Stream Pay module for billing, which connects the accounts on BNB Greenfield to the peer-to-peer (p2p) storage provider (SP) network. This ensures that all parties involved in the data storage process receive the appropriate compensation for their roles. It’s important to note that SPs have the right to revoke uploads and fees are required to be paid in order for the data storage process to be completed successfully.
4. Once the data is sealed on BNB Greenfield, storage providers cannot share that data without their client’s permission. Reading data and downloading data can only happen if a client grant the permissions to the downloader, either a few particular addresses, or everyone bysigning the appropriate transactions on the blockchain. Downloading and reading data will be free until a certain data bandwidth is used up. Clients that want greater bandwidth to reduce latency or to store additional files will need to pay an additional service fee to their SP.
This is where we start to see some interesting data economics start to arise. One user can pay another user to share data. BNB Smart Chain dApp’s can play around with this too, since they can be paid or pay other clients directly to share or get data. There are a lot of interesting ways users could earn a profit if data permissions needed to be changed by dApp’s – again, the possibilities are endless.
5. Groups are a way for storage providers and clients to give their accounts greater access control over their data. For example, accounts within a group can have specific permissions such as creating or deleting data, or executing data . There is an entire list of permissions available, which allows for a high level of control over the data that is owned by all parties involved.
We can also begin to introduce the idea of smart access control on the chain, since a majority of these permissions can be invoked by BNB Greenfield dApps that interoperate with data between the SP decentralized storage network and the BNB Smart Chain.
6. Whenever data is stored by a client on the BNB Greenfield network, they must pay a fee in BNB. Every transaction on BNB Greenfield requires a gas fee, similar to existing blockchains and Validators collect these fees by committing blocks to the blockchain for transactions to settle. A client’s storage fee plus the bandwidth fee is impacted by the size of data. In essence though, the rates are based on cost per time.
7. Anyone including Storage Providers (SPs), clients, and validators can earn rewards for challenging BNB Greenfield Storage Providers to verify the integrity and availability of data. This is called a Proof-of-Challenge check.
Proof-of-Challenge is an important part of the system to ensure that the data stored on the primary or secondary storage network is complete and intact, and that it can be downloaded or recovered if requested with proper quality of service. This helps to keep everyone accountable and those who participate in the Proof-of-Challenge process are rewarded for their integral contribution.
To make sure data is stored correctly, the system has two ways to trigger a Proof-of-Challenge.
Anyone using BNB Greenfield can submit a “challenge transaction” or BNB Greenfield validators will randomly generate a challenge. After a challenge is triggered, Validators will check if the data is available in the storage provider network and submit a vote on the BNB Greenfield chain if the data is available or not, (‘yes’ it is available, or ‘no’, it’s not available).
The votes are submitted on-chain and more than two-thirds agreement is needed amongst all the validators to confirm a vote. The validator who submits the most votes gets the most reward. (Validators earn rewards for “attestments”, which means that they have proven that the data does in fact exist).
If the data is confirmed as ‘not available’, there is a cooling-off period for the storage providers to fix the issue before being challenged again. If the data is still not available the storage providers will be penalized.
Summary of BNB Greenfield’s Value Propositions
- Data can become valuable to trade through the use of smart contracts on BNB Smart Chain.
- As data in BNB Greenfield becomes more desirable, the permission to access that data from clients or storage providers becomes more valuable.
- If the cost of storing data becomes too high, data can be deleted or moved to a new primary storage provider with more attractive incentives.
- Anyone can trigger a challenge regarding the data availability and potentially get a profit for a success challenge.
- Storage providers make profits as data is being stored and downloaded, and clients can store valuable data that can be used for a variety of reasons.
- BNB Greenfield is a decentralized smart storage network that prioritizes data security and privacy, while also allowing for the creation of a data economy through the use of smart code, challenges, and incentives.
BNB Greenfield Principles
Fair
With BNB Greenfield, you will have the option to select from various storage providers that offer the same basic services for all BNB Greenfield clients, such as developers and general users who simply want to store their data on a permissionless web server.
What sets BNB Greenfield apart from other DSN protocols is the ability for individual storage providers to offer unique incentives, customized permissions and service license agreements that users can choose from. This allows for a more personalized and democratic approach to managing on-chain data between users and storage providers. By allowing users to have control over where their data is hosted, storage providers on BNB Greenfield propagate a system that prioritizes user choice and autonomy.
Sustainable
Data can be traded on BNB Greenfield exactly how tokens on a blockchain can be traded – but BNB Greenfield takes it one step further.
All the information about data on BNB Greenfield’s storage provider network is inscribed on the BNB Greenfield chain in the form of metadata.
BNB Greenfield interoperates with BNB Smart Chain through relayers, allowing developers to interface with data via BNB Greenfield dApps, allowing static data to evolve and be utilized through the use of smart contracts on BNB Chain. Now that trading activity can happen for both the tokens and the stored data attached to token data, BNB Greenfield’s network facilitates a data economy instead of just a token economy. This is a much more sustainable option for the long term and can be much more profitable for all those who choose to participate.
Lastly, data can be removed by choice, rather than by force. There are incentives for BNB Greenfield users to remove data in the form of refund to declutter the network of unnecessary and wasteful storage space. We see this as a value add that can help bolster the way DSNs operate.
Transparent
BNB Greenfield’s core infrastructure is designed to be simple and efficient, without the need for resource-intensive proofs. As with any robust blockchain system, BNB Greenfield is built to adapt and evolve over time. The BNB Chain core development team is dedicated to transparency and open-source principles.
All of BNB Greenfield’s tools and technologies will be made available to the public, as we believe this is the most effective way to rapidly scale and decentralize the system. We encourage developers to utilize smart contracts in innovative ways to transform data in real-time on the BNB Greenfield platform, which can unlock endless possibilities for user engagement.
Evolutionary
We cannot expect the world to take control of their data freedom if the process is overly complex – we know that it has to be simple and easily manageable. Permissions give users the ability to take full control over their data and evolve it over time, which can make it more valuable. But, the most valuable aspect of BNB Greenfield is its ability to be improved by the community over time.
Also, because BNB Greenfield is an open platform, we expect a data driven economy to be born from the collective decisions made by the public, rather than from corporations and centralized entities. BNB Greenfield is an innovative step forward in decentralization and empowerment for all.
Learn More About BNB Greenfield
Read additional BNB Greenfield articles.
- An Overview of Data Storage Networks and an Introduction to BNB Greenfield
- BNB Greenfield: In-Depth Architectural Overview
- Data Storage Providers in BNB Greenfield
- A Deep Dive into BNB Greenfield Use Cases
- BNB Greenfield and the Current Decentralized Data Storage Network Landscape
Read the BNB Greenfield Whitepaper and stay informed on BNB Greenfield’s product development, shape the future of decentralized storage and get early access to the BNB Greenfield ecosystem.
- Build N’ Build Forum: Deep dive into BNB Greenfield’s protocol and platform level design with other devs.
- GitHub: Review BNB Greenfield’s codebase, SDK, API specs and more.
- Discord: Join our community and discuss BNB Greenfield’s architecture and use cases
