Have you ever worried about the privacy of your data on Apple's iCloud, Google Drive, or Dropbox? Have you ever questioned the permanence of your data stored on these traditional cloud providers, especially as censorship of the web increases?

If you value both true ownership and redundancy when it comes to your critical personal data, Jackal Protocol's new "Jackal Vault" could be the solution you have been looking for.

In this post, we will cover the limitations of conventional storage methods, as well as the advantages of decentralized storage protocols like Jackal.

Local Storage

Before we transitioned to centralized storage providers like Dropbox, Apple and Google, it was common to store personal data on local hard drives at home. Unfortunately, local storage has some shortcomings:

• Poor Availability - If you are on business in another city, or on vacation in another country, the data stored on your home computer will be inaccessible to you.
• No Redundancy - If your home is destroyed in a natural disaster, or your storage devices fail, you could lose all of your data in an instant.

For these reasons, most people opted for the convenience cloud storage when it became available, without realizing the potential negative consequences.

Cloud Storage

Most iPhone users have an iCloud account, and Android users have a Google Drive account, where their data (including pictures, contacts, and messages) is often uploaded automatically. This solution, while handy, comes with some drawbacks:

• Limited Privacy - Your data becomes visible to the centralized provider, and whoever else may have access to their data centers.
• Potential Censorship - Hypothetically, centralized providers can close your account on a whim. For example, if you oppose woke policies or refuse CBDCs.

Considering these disadvantages, people who prefer self-custody, confidentiality and redundancy of their data are starting to opt for decentralized storage instead.

What Is Jackal Protocol

Jackal Protocol's main objective is to return ownership of cloud data back to the end-user. It is one of several decentralized storage protocols with similar aims including Storj, Arweave, Crust Network, and Filecoin.

Jackal is its own application-specific blockchain, based on the Cosmos SDK. In this case, the blockchain is used to trustlessly track the whereabouts of user data, as well as make payments to independent Storage Providers.

The Jackal blockchain is secured with the Jackal token (JKL), which can be purchased on a Cosmos DEX like Osmosis. The JKL token is used to pay for storage, and the Providers earn it as a reward for lending their spare storage capacity to the network.

After either purchasing or earning JKL tokens, you can stake them to a validator using the Omniflix website, by connecting to it with a wallet like Keplr. From there, you can also vote on governance proposals that affect the protocol.

How The Vault Works

You start off by selecting the files you want to backup using Jackal's Vault interface. The files are then locally encrypted by the client, copied several times, and geographically distributed over multiple Service Providers. Watch their video on X for a visual explanation.

Since you hold the seed phrase, you remain the sole owner of the uploaded data, making it one of the most private forms of file storage. Moreover, your data is stored redundantly on the network, meaning it will remain accessible even if some of the Providers go offline.

Pitfalls

After covering the advantages of decentralized storage, we must consider some potential issues with Jackal, including the fact that it remains an experimental protocol.

If you were to lose your private key, you would lose access to your data. This is whole premise of self-custody. Otherwise, the service would be centralized, and your data vulnerable to theft and censorship.

Therefore these decentralized storage solutions are only appropriate for those who are ready to explore new possibilities, and take personal responsibility for their data.

Thankfully, there are smart people from numerous blockchain projects working together on a solution to the "lost key" problem, including the team behind the Decentralized Recovery Alliance.

Until next time...

In addition to decentralized storage, blockchain technology is enabling the tokenization of other resources like compute power, wireless networks, and mapping data. These projects all fall under the crypto DePIN umbrella (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks).

If you want further information on the Jackal Protocol, you can read the project's documentation, or follow them on X for updates. You may also want to consider joining their Discord to pose your question to the community.

If you learned something new from this article, be sure to check out my other posts on crypto and finance here on the HIVE blockchain. You can also follow me on InLeo for more frequent updates.

Resources

Images Courtesy of Venice AI [1]
Image of Jackal Vault Taken from Their X Video [2]