Today was an exercise in futility. The general idea is that it would be really nice to be able to store things on the Hive Blockchain. I mean right now you can store your posts which is nice, but what you have a file you needed to store? As an example the dragon image above from the game I'm working on. One of the 10 dragons of the great little dragons roster. If I could store it on the blockchain then it would be there permanently. No need or worry about losing my dragon image.
So, I got to work on making an app that would store the image on the chain. The side bonus being that if it works for me then ANY user could post a file to retrieve later. In addition I encrypted the file with AES 256 bit encryption so that image (for me) or any file (for someone else) could be stored securely, freely, and with no fears of it being deleted. Awesome, right?
Now because of how HIVE works files have to be pretty small. 64KB if its in a post, 8KB if its in a JSON. But guess what...
The posting and encryption part worked! We can use the app to store stuff on HIVE blockchain. Horray!
Almost.
Does it get the file. Yes. Encrypt the file. Yes. Upload the file to the blockchain (in pieces if it is too large). Yes. After much MUCH work can it download the file again. Yes. Can it decrypt the file..
Arrgghhh.... Nope.
📥 Retrieve Files
History Limit:
Note: Uses multiple API calls to search beyond 1000 operations
Decryption failed: The operation failed for an operation-specific reason
ru_emberwind.png
testdragon | 7/16/2025, 9:32:13 AM | 6 chunks
Original: 2.91 MB → Processed: 26.54 KB
So very frustrating. But I'll keep on chipping away at it and see where I end up :)
But still a project I hope is worth pursuing
Why am I doing this?
Well, first I want to be able to store game data on the HIVE blockchain so I'm trying to figure how to get the data on and off the chain.
But I'm also trying to make a utility that shows off one of the most awesome features of HIVE. Free, decentralized, data storage that is fixed and not subject to some overseer trying to delete your files.