Posts Tagged ‘Counterparty’

New Storj Share GUI v5.0.0 with New Interface and Protocol Updates

3, May 2017

Storj, the decentralized blockchain-based and encrypted file storage system with its own crypto token, has released a new Storj Share GUI version 5.0 with new interface and protocol updates now that is is out of beta stage. The new updated interface makes it easier to control the storage you share on the platform as well as making it easier to monitor things. After running it for a couple of hours however we are still noticing the main issue that the service faces at the moment – lack of users that want to use it for file storage. Now that Storj is out of beta and is giving away 25GB free storage for the first 12 months there are still not enough users to take advantage from that offer. As a result users with unused free space are not that much encouraged to use the service, because they are not earning much and are unable to utilize their free storage resources.

Something that is planned to happen soon that will hopefully generate more interest and move things further a bit is the upcoming Storj SJCX token sale that was recently announced. Storj has recently announced their plans to move away from the Bitcoin-powered Counterparty platform to the Ethereum platform. There are still a little over 16 days until the start of the crowdsale left, so if you are interested you might want to keep track of that as well.

– To download the new Storj Share GUI v5.0.0 and give it a try…

Storj Switching from Counterparty to Ethereum for Their SJCX Tokens

23, Mar 2017

The blockchain-based distributed cloud storage service Storj has announced their plan to migrate from the SJCX from Counterparty (Bitcoin blockchain based) to the Ethereum ERC20 token standard. They have summarized the problems and reasons why they consider the switch to the Ethereum blockchain in order to be able to scale up the storage services that they are offering to a much larger number of users than what they currently have with the service just out of beta stage. Their summary is in line with mostly what is currently not Ok for many people using Bitcoin and the issues that need to be addressed in order for the future development and growth of Bitcoin, so do read the quote below.

1. The official Counterparty wallet software, Counterwallet, has had no major updates in over two years, and provides a confusing interface for new users.
2. Last year, multisig ceased functioning because Bitcoin made raw multisig transactions non-standard. Tokens in multisig wallets were rendered inaccessible. There is still no concrete migration path for multisig wallets without direct miner intervention. This makes us worried that other features will cease to function in the future.
3. Because Counterparty uses the Bitcoin blockchain for transactions, which is currently having issues with transaction backlog, our users have experienced extremely long transaction times (hours to days).
4. Because Counterparty transactions create small inputs and are heavier than normal BTC transactions, users have experienced extremely high fees for transactions. For the February farmer payout we paid over $1,600 in transaction fees, or about 13% of total payouts. This is not sustainable or scalable.
5. Our work on micropayment channels for Counterparty offers promising routes to addressing the problems above but is unlikely to be broadly useful. Micropayment networks require broad adoption to be effective and secure. It is unclear whether the Counterparty ecosystem can support a robust layer 2 network.
6. The Counterparty ecosystem is small. Very few other organizations are using it at scale. To create our micropayment tools, we’ve had to fund large upgrades to the Counterparty protocol. It’s not sustainable to finance protocol upgrades while also developing our network and products.

– For more details about Storj’s migration from Counterparty to Ethereum…


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