Uniris delivers the first website on top of Blockchain technology (Archethic)
For more than 4 years, Uniris team has been working in collaboration with renowned research institutes to develop the most scalable, safe and least energy-consuming blockchain.
Recently, our focus has been on the development of the Archethic alpha network based on that research and its showcase through a unique, innovative and fully decentralized solution, by hosting the Uniris website on our blockchain.
We are proud to announce that we have achieved our goal and our website has been migrated to its "OnChain" version, https://blockchain.uniris.io being the first real website on a Blockchain.
This use case demonstrates the incredible potential of our technology by being the first to host and process the delivery of website content on a fully decentralized blockchain.
Content delivery on decentralized and distributed systems is not new. Solutions like IPFS, ZeroNet, file storage (StoreJ, FileCoin, EOS, etc.) already exist and work well in some cases, but they do not take advantage of the ecosystem and the security of the Blockchain.
So, we can now build systems over the Archethic network to provide content delivery, content reward, licenses, etc. … But let's first compare the market competitors to see why Archethic is ideal for this..
Competitors
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IPFS (InterPlanetary File System): decentralized web and content addressable storage on a P2P delivery network using distribution of nodes to host files and folders. It is widely used with Blockchain. For instance, on dApp and smart contracts, IPFS addresses are stored not the content itself (due to current blockchains architectures and limitations). However, it raises two big problems:
- Weak storage security: No one has the responsibility to keep your files. It is up to the will of a host to keep the content available. Blockchain is not involved to force consensus.
- Name file system: Names are derived from content hash which means that your IPFS link may change if you update your content and hence the related hash value. You can solve the problem by generating an IPNS link, but it requires additional work.
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ZeroNet: provides static website on P2P using BitTorrent and Bitcoin cryptography to deliver content. However, some drawbacks are present:
- User access: To see website you need to be part of the network, so you need to host and keep files.
- Censorship: If some nodes decide to censure your content, the website will get deleted and the content will no longer be available from your node.
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File storage platforms: (Storj, FileCoin, SiaCoin) are decentralized cloud storage designed to incentivize people to store data. They are built on top of Blockchain to generate proof of storage or proof of replication.
- Weak storage security: While being distributed and geographically redundant across nodes and miners, data is not stored on chain which leads to lesser security than an on-chain data storage. Only proof is on-chain.
- No content delivery use case: Even if some are expecting, no real use case has been shown yet. Their service is more for data hosting and rewarding than content delivery.
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EOS.IO storage: Smart contract with a storage capability relying on IPFS using reserved allocation of tokens. Since the EOS model is based on staking, its storage implementations exhibits those drawbacks:
- Reserve: Require holding some tokens to host and retain content.
- Censorship: Block producers may be responsible for controlling objectionable content. Anyone can seed a ruling that a stored file is objectionable and should be deleted.
- Privacy: While content can be encrypted, the identity on the blockchain can be linked to an account.
- Decentralization: Replication is orchestrated across 20 block producers. Not all the nodes can enable the storage service (top 25).
In summary, for content delivery we need to embrace a Blockchain transaction model which supports scalability and ease of use.
Archethic Transaction model
Archethic offers native support for data hosting and content delivery.
Each transaction contains transaction data which is composed into:
- Ledger operations: asset transfers
- Code: smart contract
- Keys: encrypted content and authorization
- Content: Free space to put different type of content (html, text, js, json, etc...)
So, every transaction can hold and deliver content without further notice.
Moreover, Archethic relies on transaction chain mechanism which means that each transaction is linked to its previous one. That makes it easy to upgrade a chain and a transaction. In the context of content delivery this means a lot since a content update means address change. In contrast to the previous solutions, Archethic transaction chains resolve this issue by providing the retrieval of the latest information ever.
Whenever a new transaction happens on the chain, the end user/visitor gets the latest information that has been validated on top of the ArchEthic blockchain - so it is auditable and verifiable cryptographically.
Archethic Blockchain: Scalability and Security
Another important aspect of Archethic blockchain is security. It is the most secure P2P network designed using Blockchain technology.
Thanks to the ARCH (Atomic Rotating Commitment Heuristic) consensus, every transaction is validated across the network atomically while ensuring less than 10^-9 risk of fraud beyond any standards of security. Your content will be authenticated as yours and validated across multiples nodes atomically with strong immutability designed in the Archethic protocol.
In comparison to EOS storage or other file storage solutions based on Blockchain, each transaction on Archethic is isolated from all others using a next generation sharding, hence no risk of congestion of the network during the validation.
Open the door to varied use cases and disruptive business models
Content delivery and data hosting is one of the most important in the web technology right now.
Take the web development process and Open Source community for instance. Most of the websites rely on CDN (Content Delivery Network) to provide fast and geo-located access to an asset (JavaScript, Stylesheet) to enhance its performance. However, most of them are centralized and rely on private infrastructure.
Imagine a content delivery platform where any asset can be decentralized on-chain, visible and accessible promptly around the world to deliver fast and highly available website. Archethic did it ! its website is an example.
This can provide an impetus to the Open Source mindset. Since most of the opensource projects are free, rewarding developers is tedious, using PayPal, sometimes Bitcoin. By using a transaction chain for asset delivery (website, JS library, CSS framework), an asset can now directly receive funds, and it is as easy to send any transaction. So, a developer who creates a JS library can be rewarded directly in UCO (Universal Coin) using the same transaction chain. This feature may disrupt the Opensource community and bring many opportunities to developers and software editors.
This can also be applied to Licensing business model. A lot of photo stocks and licensed products are often distributed across centralized platforms. Some dedicated platforms are using Blockchain to deliver content such as Photochain (Stock photos on top of Ethereum), but these projects are really isolated and not seamless to use.
With Archethic, licensing of assets could be mainstream and seamless by using the authorization and delegations natively supported in the Archethic transactions. Embracing high security, cryptography and unification of processing.
Uniris OnChain Website: A true Decentralized Website
What is a real decentralized website?
Decentralized websites or DWebsites are one way to provide a DApp frontend. Ownership of your website, stability, security, and author privacy are a given. These properties are resistant to censorship, difficult to hack or disrupt.
Some current implementations provide this concept using IPFS, ENS (Domain name on top of Ethereum), but multiple layers and drawbacks previously mentioned can appear.
The On-Chain version of the Uniris website, is hosted on our Archethic alpha network and provides a true example of complete decentralization of assets and content delivery. Every external asset: JavaScript library, stylesheets frameworks, PDF, HTML is deployed into specific transaction chains. With this innovation we have the ability to host multiple decentralized websites.
Many other use cases based on the delivery of content can be possible (micro-blogging, social network, etc.) and will be the subject of other articles where we will provide a more in-depth review of the technical functioning of the site - Uniris decentralized web.
You can stay informed and contact us by following the following links:
https://www.archethic.net/
contact@archethic.io
Archethic Public Blockchain
Archethic is a Layer 1 aiming to create a new Decentralized Internet.
Its blockchain infrastructure is the most scalable, secure & energy-efficient solution on the market thanks to the implementation of a new consensus: "ARCH".
Archethic smart contracts expand developers' boundaries by introducing internal oracle, time-triggers, editable content & interpreted language.
Through native integration for DeFi, NFTs & decentralized identity; Archethic offers an inclusive and interoperable ecosystem for all blockchains.
In order to achieve the long-term vision of an autonomous network in the hands of the world population, we developed a biometric device respecting personal data privacy (GDPR compliant).
Making the blockchain world accessible with the tip of a finger. Be the only key! https://www.archethic.net/
Archethic Foundation Non-profit in order to manage decentralized governance of the public blockchain
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