Quirks-of-Blockchain-as-a-Data-Storage-Solution

This repository reviews the pros and cons of an experiment in using blockchain as a data storage solution

Concept

• On average, current options for data storage solutions on charge $0.00001 to $0.0001 per byte.
• An Algorand transaction costs 1,000 microAlgo, where each microAlgo is 1/1,000,000th of an Algo.
• At current price, Algorand is $0.27, meaning 1 microAlgo is equivalent to $0.00000027
• The maximum capacity of data that can be passed into an application call is 3,584 bytes, and at minimum an application call requires 1,000 microAlgo, meaning each byte stored on-chain costs 0.28 microAlgo (0.2790178571428571)
• The current cost per byte using Algorand as a data storage solution would be $0.0000000754
• This is roughly 133x to 1,326x cheaper than traditional data storage solutions, and all data is immutable once stored, and does not incur a reccuring cost to the user.
• Even if the price of Algorand increased to $10 and the transaction fee was increased 10x to 10,000 microAlgo— using Algorand instead could still be up to 3x cheaper.

Workflow

• A user would deploy their own dedicated smart contract, that has a method to accept data as an application argument.
• Assertions are made that only the user may submit transactions
• An arbitrary amount of data would be broken into chunks of 3,584 bytes per application call
• Labeling could be done in any number of ways, but generally we would have byte prefix' for the file name, round start, and round end, as well as byte-labeling for file start transaction and file end transaction
• Transactions are submitted for each chunk to the application, and the full data can be can be retrieved in chunks and reconstructed at any time by indexing application-call type transactions to the user's dedicated smart contract's application ID.

Storage Per Transaction

• The maximum application argument size is 2048 bytes; subtracting the bytes needed for the method argument, this allows us 2042 bytes of storage
• The maximum note field size is 1024 bytes
• The maximum foreign accounts reference size is 4 addresses, each at 32 bytes long
• The maximum foreign assets reference size is 8, with maximum total references set to 8, allowing 4 foreign asset references, each at 8 bytes long
• The maximum box reference size is 8, with a max key size of 64 bytes, a total of 512 bytes

Total Bytes per Transaction: 2048 + 1024 + 512 = 3,584 bytes

Pros

• Immutable Storage
• Cheaper per byte cost
• One-time payment for storage
• Decentralized, not authority-dependant for future access
• Data can be encrypted using curve25519 keys, converted from native ed25519 keys used by accounts for signing on Algorand

Cons

• Relay nodes and Indexers are affected as they store the full state of the chain, using blockchain as a data storage solution causes bloat across all hosts— which technically increases the shared storage by several folds.
• Indexer access is required to query for transaction data, although there are free tiers of access available depending on the amount of data API limits may be exceeded
• There is no current ed25519 to curve25519 key conversion support from current wallet providers, and the user would either need to encrypt their own data or allow us to store a custodial escrow account to encrypt their data for them