Robert has reported for a variety of international publications including the Associated Press, The Guardian, Vice, and Decrypt. Current areas of interest include the political economy of technology, cryptocurrencies, and privacy. Robert has a Bachelor of Science from UCL, and a Master's degree from the University of Oxford's Internet Institute.
What is Storj?
STORJ is the native token of the Storj network, a decentralized cloud storage platform made up of its users’ spare hard drive space. Instead of paying for centralized services like Google Drive or Amazon Web Services, you can store data on Storj.
One of the perceived advantages of decentralization is that the network cannot control the hard drives that store this data. This means that there is no single point of failure. And unlike, say, Dropbox, not even the people who build Storj can access the files stored on the network. To coordinate all of this, the Storj network uses a proprietary piece of software called Tardigrade.
Storj raised 910 bitcoin in an ICO (initial coin offering) in 2014 and $30 million more through another public token sale in 2017. Google Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, and Techstars are among its backers. As of May 19, 2022, the market capitalization for STORJ was $211 million. That is almost nine times less than that of Filecoin, STORJ’s most prominent competitor.
What can you do with Storj?
Its primary function is to incentivize hard drive users to rent out their storage space to the Storj network. Also, those who pay for that storage space receive a 10% bonus for doing so in STORJ rather than with a credit card.
STORJ is an ERC-20 token, meaning it is built on the Ethereum blockchain and can be plugged into any decentralized finance smart contract that accepts it. You could, for instance, earn extra tokens by adding liquidity to a STORJ liquidity pool on Uniswap, where you’d earn a cut of the transaction fees charged to Uniswap users looking to exchange one token for another.
And, of course, you can also buy and sell STORJ as a means of speculation. As with all cryptocurrencies, it’s important to remember that STORJ is volatile.
How can you buy Storj?
You can buy STORJ through a brokerage like Wealthsimple Crypto, a cryptocurrency exchange, or a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange.
Brokerages and exchanges let you buy STORJ for fiat (traditional currencies) or cryptocurrencies. Decentralized exchanges are blockchain only, however, and they accept only crypto as payment.
Last Updated June 1, 2022
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