1. Scalable to Exabytes+

Why It Matters: Scalability is a major challenge in decentralized storage. While traditional blockchains are excellent at ensuring data integrity and security, they struggle with scaling storage to the levels required by modern applications. Achieving scalability to exabytes or beyond means you’re setting the foundation for supporting real-world applications that generate massive amounts of data, such as large customer order databases, big data analytics, or AI/ML applications on-chain.
 

Current Solutions’ Limitations: As of now, the only place to store data in smart contracts is "accounts". While these are smart-contract native, they don't scale, not even to Gigabytes. Existing blockchain storage solutions like Filecoin or Arweave do offer decentralized storage, but are not smart contract native nor random access.

 

 

 

 

 

2. Smart Contract Native

Why It Matters: This is the key differentiator for your solution. By integrating scalable storage directly into a smart contract platform like Solana, you’re extending the blockchain’s capabilities from being a “world computer” with RAM-like accounts to a full-fledged decentralized server that includes both compute and scalable storage. This integration is crucial for enabling complex, data-intensive dApps that need to interact with storage in real-time.
 

Current Solutions’ Limitations: Solutions like Filecoin and Arweave are typically not designed to be smart contract native. They are often used as separate, external services that dApps must interact with through bridges or APIs, adding complexity and limiting the kinds of real-time operations that can be performed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Random Access
 

Why It Matters: Random access is essential for enabling a wide range of applications that need to interact with specific portions of data efficiently, rather than treating all data as immutable or archive-like. This allows for more dynamic and interactive applications, such as databases, real-time analytics, or interactive content, which are not feasible with storage solutions that only offer file-level access.
 

Current Solutions’ Limitations: Many decentralized storage solutions are designed for storing large, immutable files or archives, making random access difficult or inefficient. This limits their applicability to a narrow range of use cases and prevents them from being integrated seamlessly into the dynamic workflows of modern web applications.