The cost of decentralized file storage on blockchains like Filecoin, Arweave, Swarm, StorJ and Sia currently ranges from near zero to $4 per terabyte (TB) per month, according to a new report from Singapore-based venture capital firm Foresight Ventures. USD varies . That's much lower than traditional Web2 services like Amazon Cloud or Microsoft Azure, which range in price from $16 to $23 per terabyte of storage per month.
However, the report also outlines other costs associated with decentralized storage, such as data upload fees and retrieval fees, the latter of which can reach $7 per terabyte. Some service providers mentioned in the report, such as Filecoin, only have storage fees, which are also low, while others have all three fees mentioned above.
Additionally, analysts at Foresight wrote that blockchain storage still suffers from “file loss,” “difficult data retrieval,” and “high bandwidth requirements.” Referring to one blockchain, the researchers commented: “The price does not account for bandwidth, and some nodes only provide storage services and refuse retrieval."
Despite the pricing controversy, data from blockchain analytics firm Messari cited in the report shows that the combined storage capacity of the four major file storage blockchains will increase by 2% year-on-year to 17 million terabytes by the end of 2022. Filecoin cu currently has the largest market share at 67%, followed by Arweave (19%), Sia (8%), and Storj (6%). While network utilization remains relatively low, this metric for top players has soared from 0.2% in 2021 to 3.1%.
On April 27, Filecoin rolled out nv19 Lightening and nv20 Thunder network upgrades to shorten block verification times. As of April, the network had 22.7 million terabytes of storage capacity and 3,623 storage provider systems.
