By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
Acknowledging the potential of decentralized data storage, in February 2023, BNB Chain launched BNB Greendfield. The goal of the BNB Greenfield is to unleash the power of decentralized blockchain and storage technology on data ownership and data economy.
BNB Greenfield is not only a new blockchain in BNB but also an infrastructure and ecosystem targeting to facilitate the decentralized data economy. It tries to achieve it by easing the process to store and manage data access and linking data ownership with the massive DeFi context of BSC.
Decentralized data storage is a way of storing data across a distributed network of computers rather than in one central location. Data is divided and spread out among multiple computers or nodes to be stored across the network, with each node contributing storage. This makes it possible to store large amounts of data without relying on a central server or single controlling entity.
Decentralization is one of the core properties of Web3 blockchain technology. The key design principle is that no one person or organization is in charge. The tech allows users to transact safely without having to rely on a third party to maintain trust.
It also opens the door for smart contracts to automate these interactions, allowing for the creation of DApps that support a wide array of products — from decentralized finance (DeFi) services to games (GameFi) and more.
On February 1, 2023, BNB Chain announced the release of the BNB Greenfield whitepaper. To summarize, BNB Greenfield provides decentralized storage infrastructure within the broader BNB Chain ecosystem. The idea is to help users and DApps to create, store, and exchange data with full ownership, and form a new data economy.
BNB Greenfield is a storage-oriented blockchain interacting with a decentralized network of storage providers (SPs). Users upload their data with unique access and usage permissions. SPs store that data off-chain with proper redundancy and backup, while metadata of users’ BNB ledger is stored on the BNB Greenfield blockchain.
Thanks to a native cross-chain bridge, all aspects of the data stored in the BNB Greenfield ecosystem can easily be transferred to BNB Smart Chain, where it can be used both in the existing BNB Chain DApp ecosystem, as well as with a new generation of BNB Greenfield DApps. These DApps can either help users interact with the Greenfield ecosystem or function as Web3 products that leverage the available data.
The ability to uniquely configure permissions on data in a native smart contract-enabled environment enables myriad potential business models that will benefit users and other BNB Greenfield participants.
BNB Greenfield is a decentralized data storage that has a number of benefits over centralized data storage:
Better security: This is thanks to data being spread across multiple nodes rather than being on a single server, which makes it much more difficult for hackers to infiltrate data storage and extract information.
Improved resilience: Unlike centralized systems, decentralized storage has no single point of failure as the data is on multiple nodes. So even if one goes down, users can still access data from other nodes on the network.
User freedom and control: Decentralized storage puts users in control of their own data and how it is used and accessed. This way, it won’t be subject to the policies of a centralized provider, who may change terms at any time.
More privacy: Another consequence of putting users in charge of their own data is that it substantially increases privacy. Unlike with centralized entities, anyone looking to store data in a decentralized system need not submit personal information.
Market efficiencies: The use of token-based economies within decentralized storage systems can encourage individuals to contribute available storage resources in order to receive rewards. This in turn ensures a more sustainable and decentralized ecosystem.
Here are a few of the possibilities BNB Greenfield can unlock to create a new wave of DApps.
Website hosting: Since BNB Greenfield provides APIs and uses concepts that are very similar to Amazon S3, users can easily deploy their websites via BNB Greenfield and conveniently manage their payments with BNB.
Personal cloud storage: With their private keys, users can create their own network drives using BNB Greenfield to upload and download their encrypted files, photos, and videos via their desktop and mobile devices.
Blockchain data storage: L1s contain dozens of terabytes of historic data, much of which is dormant. BNB Greenfield can be used to store this data, reducing L1 latency and improving data availability, as well as delivering dormant data to the L1 when needed. Greenfield can also be used as a cheaper option to store L2 rollup transaction data.
Publishing: Authors can store their work on BNB Greenfield and mirror them onto BNB Smart Chain, where they can sell them by granting read permissions to buyer addresses after receiving payment.
Social media: BNB Greenfield provides the infrastructure for social media influencers and key opinion leaders to fully own their own content and data. For a fee, DApps can use this data and publish it to a public audience via a decentralized social network.
Personal data market: This may be the most complicated problem to tackle now: how to own your data — such as page views, registrations, clicks, behavior data, and more — and not allow platforms (usually large, centralized monopolies) to mismanage or even abuse it.
BNB Greenfield will enable applications to store your encrypted personal data in your own personal account and only allow other applications to use it if you grant permission. Better yet, you can even charge a fee for this usage of your data.
The arrival of BNB Greenfield has the potential to open the floodgates to an entirely new wave of novel, innovative, and transparent Web3 business models for DApps.
Transparency and data ownership are the next step in unlocking Web3’s full potential. BNB Greenfield will continue to develop this new frontier in partnership with the broader Web3 community, for the benefit of the next generation of users.