Decentralized storage refers to distributed file storage systems that spread data across a peer-to-peer network of independent nodes, incentivized through blockchain-based token economies, rather than relying on centralized data centers operated by single entities like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure. In decentralized storage networks, files are encrypted, split into fragments (shards), distributed across multiple geographically dispersed nodes, and retrievable using content-addressed identifiers – cryptographic hashes that reference data by its content rather than its location.
The fundamental innovation of decentralized storage lies in combining distributed systems engineering with cryptoeconomic incentive design. Storage providers (often called miners or node operators) pledge storage capacity to the network and earn cryptocurrency tokens for reliably storing and serving data. Cryptographic proofs – such as Proof of Spacetime (used by Filecoin) and Proof of Access (used by Arweave) – allow the network to continuously verify that storage providers are genuinely maintaining the data they committed to store, without requiring trust in any single party.
Content addressing is a core technical departure from traditional storage. In centralized systems, data is referenced by its location (e.g., https://server.com/files/document.pdf). In decentralized storage, data is referenced by its Content Identifier (CID) – a cryptographic hash derived from the data itself (e.g., bafybeigdyrzt5sfp7udm7hu76uh7y26nf3efuylqabf3okuez...). This means the same data always produces the same CID regardless of where it is stored, enabling deduplication, integrity verification, and censorship resistance. If the data is tampered with, the CID changes, making unauthorized modifications immediately detectable.
The decentralized storage ecosystem encompasses several major protocols with distinct philosophies: Filecoin (market-based storage with retrieval deals), IPFS (content-addressed peer-to-peer file sharing), Arweave (permanent, one-time-payment storage), Sia (renter-host storage contracts), and Storj (enterprise-grade distributed cloud storage). Each addresses different segments of the storage market, from permanent archival (Arweave) to dynamic application data (Filecoin) to enterprise migration from AWS S3 (Storj).
In the cryptocurrency ecosystem, decentralized storage is critical infrastructure. NFT metadata and media files are increasingly stored on IPFS or Arweave to ensure permanence (after high-profile incidents of NFT media disappearing when centralized servers went offline). DeFi protocols store front-end interfaces on IPFS to resist censorship. DAOs archive governance proposals and votes on Arweave for immutable record-keeping. The convergence of decentralized storage with blockchain-based applications represents a fundamental building block of the Web3 stack.
Origin & History
2001: BitTorrent launched, demonstrating the viability of peer-to-peer file distribution at scale. While not blockchain-based, BitTorrent established the architectural pattern of splitting files into pieces distributed across a swarm of peers – the conceptual ancestor of all decentralized storage protocols.
2014: Juan Benet, a computer scientist, published the IPFS whitepaper, describing the InterPlanetary File System – a peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol designed to make the web more resilient through content addressing. IPFS introduced the concept of CIDs (Content Identifiers) using Merkle DAGs (Directed Acyclic Graphs), enabling verifiable, location-independent file references. Benet founded Protocol Labs to develop IPFS and its incentive layer, Filecoin.
2014: David Vorick and Luke Champine launched the Sia whitepaper, proposing a decentralized storage platform where renters pay hosts using the Siacoin (SC) cryptocurrency through smart-contract-enforced storage agreements. Sia pioneered the concept of file contracts – blockchain-enforced agreements between storage renters and providers.
2017: Filecoin raised $205 million in an initial coin offering (ICO) – one of the largest at the time – to build an incentive layer on top of IPFS. Filecoin introduced Proof of Replication (proving data has been uniquely encoded and stored) and Proof of Spacetime (proving data is being continuously stored over time), creating a verifiable storage marketplace.
2018: Sam Williams and William Jones launched Arweave, introducing the concept of the “permaweb” – a permanent, immutable web built on a novel blockchain-like structure called a “blockweave.” Arweave’s key innovation was a single, one-time payment model for permanent storage, using Proof of Access consensus that incentivizes miners to store and serve rare data. The endowment model mathematically aims to ensure storage cost sustainability as hardware costs decline.
2018: Storj Labs launched Storj V3 (later rebranded), offering an enterprise-grade decentralized cloud storage platform designed as a drop-in replacement for Amazon S3. Storj focused on developer experience, offering S3-compatible APIs, automatic encryption, and erasure coding across its global node network.
2020: Filecoin mainnet launched on October 15, activating the storage marketplace that had been in development for roughly three years. The network grew rapidly to multiple exabytes of storage capacity within months, though actual utilization of that raw capacity (i.e., how much of it was filled with paid, useful data rather than empty committed space) remained low for the network’s first several years.
2021-2022: The NFT boom drove massive adoption of IPFS and Arweave for metadata and media storage. After incidents where NFTs stored on centralized servers became inaccessible, the community established IPFS/Arweave storage as a best practice. Major NFT platforms including OpenSea and Metaplex began encouraging or requiring decentralized storage for new collections.
2023-2024: Filecoin introduced the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM), enabling smart contracts on the storage network and unlocking programmable storage deals, data DAOs, and decentralized computation. Arweave launched AO, a decentralized compute environment built on Arweave, expanding from storage into a full decentralized computing platform. Enterprise adoption accelerated, with organizations like the Internet Archive, USC Shoah Foundation, and various research institutions exploring decentralized storage for archival.
2025-2026: Filecoin’s network utilization rose substantially – from roughly 29% in early 2025 to the mid-30% range by late 2025 – driven by a deliberate ecosystem shift toward paid, verified storage deals rather than raw capacity growth, alongside new upgrades (Proof of Data Possession, faster finality, and “Filecoin Onchain Cloud” services) and rising AI-driven data demand. Total network capacity has fluctuated in the low-to-mid exabyte range as smaller storage providers consolidated under stricter operational requirements, even as the quality and paid usage of remaining capacity improved. Institutions including the Smithsonian and MIT Open Learning have been cited among Filecoin’s higher-profile storage clients during this period.
In Simple Terms
Think of decentralized storage like a safety deposit box system where instead of one bank holding your valuables, your belongings are split into encrypted pieces and placed in hundreds of different boxes across the world. No single box holder can see or access your full data, and even if a few boxes are destroyed, the system can reconstruct your files from the remaining pieces.
Imagine a giant jigsaw puzzle. With centralized storage (like Google Drive), the entire assembled puzzle sits in one warehouse – if the warehouse floods, the puzzle is gone. With decentralized storage, each puzzle piece is stored in a different house across different cities. The puzzle can be reassembled on demand, and losing a few pieces doesn’t matter because extra copies exist.
Consider a library system. Traditional cloud storage is like one massive library where Amazon is the sole librarian. Decentralized storage is like having thousands of small libraries in homes across the world, connected by a catalog (the blockchain) that tells you exactly which homes have which books. Any librarian can leave, and the books are still available elsewhere.
Think of Arweave’s permanent storage like carving information into stone tablets that are distributed across the globe. You pay once for the carving, and the tablets endure indefinitely. Traditional cloud storage is like renting a whiteboard – if you stop paying rent, your data gets erased.
Important: Decentralized storage does not automatically mean data is private or encrypted. While many protocols encrypt data by default, the content addressing system means that anyone who knows a file’s CID can request it from the network. Sensitive data must be explicitly encrypted before uploading, and access control must be managed at the application layer rather than relying on the storage protocol alone.
Key Technical Features
Content Addressing and CIDs
Files are identified by Content Identifiers (CIDs) – cryptographic hashes of the file’s content, typically using SHA-256 or BLAKE2b
CIDs are deterministic: the same data always produces the same CID, enabling global deduplication
IPFS uses Merkle DAGs (Directed Acyclic Graphs) to structure data, allowing large files to be split into blocks that are individually addressable and verifiable
Content addressing eliminates broken links: as long as any node on the network holds the data, it can be retrieved by its CID
UnixFS is the default data format in IPFS, mapping traditional file system structures to Merkle DAG nodes
Cryptoeconomic Incentive Mechanisms
Filecoin: Storage providers lock FIL tokens as collateral and earn FIL for fulfilling storage deals; slashing penalties punish providers who lose data or go offline
Arweave: Miners earn AR tokens for storing data and producing blocks; the endowment model pools storage fees and distributes rewards over time as storage costs decline (modeled on a multi-decade sustainability curve)
Sia: Hosts post collateral in Siacoin; renters create file contracts specifying storage duration, size, and price; the blockchain enforces payment and penalties
Storj: Node operators earn STORJ tokens based on stored data volume and bandwidth served; reputation scores determine how much data nodes receive
How Filecoin’s Proof of Spacetime Works
A storage provider commits storage capacity to the Filecoin network by sealing sectors (encoding data into a specialized format)
The sealing process creates a unique cryptographic proof (Proof of Replication) demonstrating the data has been uniquely encoded – not just claimed
Over time, the network periodically challenges the provider to generate Proof of Spacetime proofs, demonstrating continuous storage of the sealed data
The provider must respond to challenges within a deadline window; failure to respond triggers fault penalties and potential slashing of collateral
Successful continuous proving earns the provider block rewards and storage deal payments from clients
Verified deals (from Filecoin Plus) earn a storage power multiplier, incentivizing storage of real, useful data over empty sectors
Erasure Coding and Redundancy
Files are split into data shards and encoded with erasure coding (e.g., Reed-Solomon codes), creating redundancy shards
A file split into data shards with parity shards can be fully reconstructed from a subset of the total shards, depending on the specific scheme used
Storj uses an 80-piece erasure coding scheme where only a subset (around 29) of pieces are needed for reconstruction
This approach can provide very high durability without full replication, making it more space-efficient than simple multi-copy replication. Note that major centralized providers like AWS S3 also employ their own erasure coding schemes across multiple availability zones to achieve strong durability guarantees, rather than relying on simple copy-based replication.
Redundancy is automatically maintained on well-designed networks: if a node goes offline, the network can redistribute shards to maintain the target redundancy level
Arweave’s Blockweave and Proof of Access
Arweave uses a blockweave structure where each block references both the previous block and a randomly selected historical block (the “recall block”)
Proof of Access requires miners to prove they have access to the recall block’s data to mine new blocks, incentivizing storage of the full blockweave history
The Succinct Random Proof of Access (SPoRA) mechanism aims to ensure miners cannot simply store recent blocks – they must maintain deep archival access
The endowment model sets storage prices based on a conservative projection of storage cost decline over time, aiming to ensure perpetual storage funding
Advantages & Disadvantages
Advantages
Disadvantages
Censorship Resistance: No single entity can delete or restrict access to data stored across thousands of independent nodes worldwide
Retrieval Speed: Decentralized storage typically has higher latency than centralized CDN-backed solutions like AWS CloudFront for frequently accessed data
Data Sovereignty: Users maintain ownership and control over their data without trusting a corporate intermediary that can change terms of service unilaterally
Complexity: Managing encryption keys, CIDs, and storage deals is significantly more complex than using drag-and-drop cloud storage interfaces
Fault Tolerance: Erasure coding and geographic distribution mean data can survive individual node failures, data center outages, and even natural disasters
Storage Cost Volatility: Token-denominated storage costs fluctuate with cryptocurrency markets, making budgeting unpredictable for enterprise users
No Vendor Lock-in: Content addressing means data is portable across providers and protocols; the same CID works regardless of which nodes host the data
Data Availability Risk: If storage incentives are insufficient or a network loses critical mass of node operators, data may become temporarily or permanently unavailable
Permanence (Arweave): One-time payment model enables long-term storage without ongoing subscription costs or the routine risk of data deletion
Regulatory Challenges: Storing immutable data raises concerns about illegal content removal, GDPR compliance, and content moderation obligations
Cost Efficiency at Scale: Decentralized storage can leverage unused capacity on commodity hardware worldwide, often pricing below centralized alternatives for cold storage
Network Maturity: Decentralized storage networks are still comparatively young; long-term reliability and economic sustainability continue to be proven at enterprise scale
Transparency: Storage proofs, deal terms, and network health are publicly verifiable on-chain, unlike opaque centralized cloud SLAs
Immutability Trade-offs: Data stored on Arweave cannot be deleted or modified, which is a feature for archival but a liability for data that needs updating or removal
Ecosystem Integration: Native compatibility with blockchain applications – NFT metadata, DeFi frontends, DAO archives – creates smooth Web3 infrastructure
Bandwidth Economics: Serving high-traffic content is expensive on incentivized networks; hot storage and CDN-level performance remain strengths of centralized providers
Risk Management
Data Loss and Availability Risk
If insufficient nodes store a file’s shards, or if the storage network experiences a mass exodus of providers, data may become temporarily or permanently unavailable
Mitigation: use multiple storage providers and redundancy levels; pin critical data on multiple IPFS pinning services (Pinata, Web3.Storage, Infura); for archival data, consider storing on both Filecoin (incentivized) and Arweave (permanent); implement monitoring for retrieval failures
Regularly verify data integrity by attempting retrievals and comparing CIDs
Economic Sustainability Risk
Token-based incentive models depend on the cryptocurrency’s market value; a severe token price crash could make storage provision unprofitable, causing node operators to exit
Mitigation: Filecoin’s collateral-slashing mechanism aims to force providers to maintain data or lose deposits; Arweave’s endowment model is designed to partly decouple storage sustainability from short-term token price; diversify across multiple storage networks
Monitor network health metrics: total storage capacity, utilization rates, and provider count trends – Filecoin’s own network data has shown meaningful swings in both capacity and provider count over 2025-2026
Illegal Content and Compliance Risk
The censorship-resistant and immutable nature of decentralized storage can be exploited to host illegal content that cannot be removed
Mitigation: IPFS gateway operators can implement content filtering at the gateway level; applications can maintain blocklists of known harmful CIDs; Filecoin storage deals have expiration dates, allowing natural content removal; engage with regulatory frameworks proactively
Organizations storing regulated data should ensure compliance with data retention and deletion obligations before choosing permanent storage solutions
Key Management and Access Control Risk
Encrypted data stored on decentralized networks is only as secure as the encryption keys; loss of encryption keys means permanent loss of data access
Mitigation: use established encryption standards (AES-256, NaCl); implement key backup procedures with redundancy; consider threshold encryption schemes where multiple parties must cooperate to decrypt; use hardware security modules (HSMs) for enterprise deployments
Cultural Relevance
Decentralized storage represents one of the more tangible, practical applications of blockchain technology beyond cryptocurrency trading. While much of crypto culture revolves around financial speculation, decentralized storage aims at concrete utility – preserving data, resisting censorship, and pursuing digital permanence.
The phrase “Not your server, not your data” has become a rallying cry in the Web3 community, echoing the crypto ethos of self-custody. High-profile centralized infrastructure outages – such as major cloud provider or CDN incidents that have cascaded across large portions of the internet – have reinforced arguments from decentralized storage advocates that centralized infrastructure creates systemic risk.
The NFT metadata issues of 2021-2022 brought decentralized storage into mainstream crypto consciousness. When buyers discovered that many valuable NFTs were merely links to images hosted on regular web servers – servers that could go offline at any time – the community rallied around IPFS and Arweave as a standard for NFT storage. The idea that “your NFT is just a link to a JPEG on someone’s server” became a powerful cultural catalyst for decentralized storage adoption.
Arweave’s permaweb concept has captured the imagination of digital archivists, journalists, and activists. Various projects built on Arweave have been used to preserve content facing censorship risk, including mirrors of blocked news content and documentation efforts. The idea of “information that cannot be deleted” resonates with press freedom advocates and human rights organizations.
In the broader developer culture, the shift from location-addressed content (https://...) to content-addressed data (ipfs://...) represents a philosophical transformation in how the internet works. The vision of a web where data is permanent, portable, and verifiable – rather than ephemeral, siloed, and fragile – is a core motivation for the decentralized storage movement.
Real-World Examples
NFT Metadata Storage on IPFS and Arweave
Scenario: A major NFT collection (e.g., a large generative art project) needs to ensure that artwork and metadata remain accessible permanently, regardless of the project team’s continued operation.
Implementation: The project stores all artwork files and JSON metadata on IPFS using a pinning service, and additionally archives everything on Arweave for permanent storage. The NFT smart contract stores IPFS CIDs and Arweave transaction IDs as the token URIs, providing multiple redundant retrieval paths.
Outcome: Even if the project’s website goes offline and the team dissolves, artwork and metadata stored this way remain accessible through IPFS gateways and Arweave’s permaweb. The CID-based references help guarantee that the data cannot be tampered with – any modification would produce a different hash. This approach became a widely-adopted best practice after multiple high-profile NFT collections lost their artwork due to centralized server failures.
Filecoin for Scientific Data Archival
Scenario: A research consortium needs to store large volumes of data with verifiable integrity guarantees and without dependence on a single cloud provider that could change pricing or terms of service.
Implementation: The consortium uses Filecoin, potentially through the Filecoin Plus program (which provides incentivized storage for verified valuable datasets), to distribute data across multiple storage providers globally. Proof of Spacetime cryptographically demonstrates continuous storage, and the data is accessible via CIDs. The consortium may also maintain IPFS pinning as a fast retrieval layer.
Outcome: Large volumes of research data can be stored with high durability across a decentralized network, often at a cost advantage relative to some centralized cold-storage options. Researchers can access datasets using CIDs without necessarily requiring bilateral institutional data-sharing agreements. Filecoin’s ecosystem has cited partnerships with organizations including the Internet Archive and various academic institutions as evidence of growing enterprise interest.
Arweave for Censorship-Resistant Publishing
Scenario: An independent news organization operating in a country with strict internet censorship needs to publish investigative reports that are difficult to delete or block.
Implementation: The organization publishes articles to the Arweave permaweb, often using a bundling service like Irys (formerly Bundlr) for fast, low-cost uploads. Each article receives a permanent Arweave transaction ID. The content is mirrored through multiple Arweave gateways, making it accessible even if specific gateway domains are blocked.
Outcome: Published articles become highly resistant to takedown – no single government request, court order, or hacking attack can straightforwardly delete them from the blockweave, though gateway-level blocking of specific domains remains possible. The one-time storage payment structure aims to ensure durable availability without ongoing subscription costs. Platforms like Mirror.xyz built publishing products on top of Arweave, demonstrating commercial viability for permanent decentralized content hosting.
Storj for Enterprise Cloud Migration
Scenario: A mid-sized SaaS company wants to reduce its AWS S3 storage costs while improving data sovereignty and reducing single-vendor dependency.
Implementation: The company migrates its backup and archival data to Storj using Storj’s S3-compatible gateway, requiring minimal code changes. Data is automatically encrypted client-side, split into erasure-coded pieces, and distributed across Storj’s global network of node operators, with only a subset of pieces needed for reconstruction.
Outcome: Storage costs can decrease substantially compared to AWS S3 for comparable archival workloads, with data encrypted end-to-end (Storj does not hold encryption keys) and distributed across multiple jurisdictions. The S3-compatible API means many existing backup tools and scripts work with minimal modification, lowering migration friction. Exact cost savings vary by workload and should be benchmarked directly rather than assumed from a fixed percentage.
Comparison Table
Feature
Filecoin
Arweave
IPFS (without incentive layer)
Storj
Amazon S3 (Centralized)
Storage Model
Market-based deals (renters pay providers)
One-time payment for permanent storage
Volunteer pinning (no built-in incentive)
Usage-based pricing (S3-compatible)
Subscription/usage-based
Persistence
Duration-based (deal length)
Aims for permanence (endowment model)
Depends on pinning services
As long as account is active
As long as account is active
Consensus/Proof
Proof of Spacetime + Proof of Replication
Proof of Access (SPoRA)
None (not a blockchain)
Reputation-based node selection
N/A (centralized trust)
Native Token
FIL
AR
None
STORJ (ERC-20)
N/A (fiat payment)
Retrieval Speed
Moderate (improving with retrieval markets and newer upgrades)
Moderate (gateway-dependent)
Fast (if well-pinned)
Fast (optimized for enterprise)
Very fast (CDN-backed)
Censorship Resistance
High (decentralized providers)
Very high (immutable permaweb)
Moderate (gateway-dependent)
Moderate (centralized gateway)
Low (complies with takedowns)
Best For
Large-scale, verifiable data storage
Permanent archival, publishing
Developer tooling, content distribution
Enterprise cloud replacement
General-purpose cloud storage
Related Terms
IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) – A peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol for content-addressed file sharing that forms the foundation layer for Filecoin and many Web3 storage applications.
Filecoin – A decentralized storage marketplace built by Protocol Labs that incentivizes storage providers with FIL tokens and uses Proof of Spacetime for verification.
Arweave – A permanent, decentralized storage network using a blockweave structure and one-time payment model to enable the “permaweb” of immutable data.
Content Identifier (CID) – A cryptographic hash that uniquely identifies data by its content rather than its location, enabling verifiable, deduplicatable storage references.
Proof of Spacetime – A cryptographic proof mechanism used by Filecoin to verify that storage providers are continuously and honestly storing client data over time.
Erasure Coding – A data protection method that splits data into fragments with redundancy codes, allowing full reconstruction from a subset of fragments.
NFT Metadata – The off-chain data (images, attributes, descriptions) referenced by NFT smart contracts, increasingly stored on IPFS or Arweave for permanence.
Storj – An enterprise-grade decentralized cloud storage platform offering S3-compatible APIs and end-to-end encryption across a global node network.
Pinning Service – A service that ensures IPFS content remains available by persistently storing it on dedicated nodes, preventing garbage collection.
Merkle DAG – A directed acyclic graph where each node is identified by a cryptographic hash of its contents, used by IPFS to structure and verify data.
Sia – A decentralized storage platform using Siacoin-denominated file contracts between renters and hosts, with blockchain-enforced storage agreements.
FAQ
Q: How does decentralized storage differ from regular cloud storage like Google Drive or Dropbox? A: Traditional cloud storage stores your data on servers owned by a single company in a few data center locations. That company controls access, can read your data (unless you encrypt it yourself), and can delete files, change pricing, or shut down the service. Decentralized storage encrypts and distributes your data across many independent nodes worldwide. No single entity controls access, and content addressing helps ensure data integrity. The trade-off is typically more complexity and potentially slower retrieval for hot data.
Q: Is data stored on IPFS permanent? A: Not automatically. IPFS is a protocol for content-addressed data sharing, but it does not guarantee persistence. Data on IPFS stays available only as long as at least one node is “pinning” (actively storing) it. Without pinning, data may be garbage-collected by nodes that need to free space. For durability, you generally need either a dedicated pinning service (Pinata, Web3.Storage) or an incentivized storage network like Filecoin (time-limited deals) or Arweave (built for permanence).
Q: How much does decentralized storage cost compared to AWS S3? A: Costs vary by protocol and change frequently. Filecoin storage deals can be very cheap, sometimes subsidized through Filecoin Plus for verified data, though retrieval costs vary. Arweave charges a one-time fee for storage, paid in AR, meaning the dollar-equivalent cost fluctuates with the token’s price. Storj has historically marketed pricing well below AWS S3 Standard rates for comparable storage. Because both token prices and centralized provider promotional pricing shift over time, treat any specific dollar figure as illustrative rather than a current quote, and check each provider’s live pricing page before budgeting.
Q: Can decentralized storage handle real-time applications like video streaming? A: Currently, decentralized storage is generally best suited for static content, archival data, and application assets rather than real-time streaming. Retrieval latency on Filecoin and Arweave is typically higher than centralized CDNs, though this has been improving with newer network upgrades. IPFS with well-distributed pinning can serve content reasonably quickly. For most production applications, a hybrid approach – decentralized storage for persistence with centralized CDN caching for delivery – offers the best performance today.
Q: What happens to my data if a decentralized storage network shuts down? A: This depends on the protocol. For IPFS, your data exists wherever it is pinned – if you have local copies and pins on multiple services, the status of any single IPFS-adjacent service is less relevant. For Filecoin, if the network were to cease operating, data would remain with storage providers, but the incentive to maintain it would disappear over time. For Arweave, the endowment model is designed so that even if the core protocol’s activity slowed, data would still exist on miners’ storage hardware, though continued availability isn’t absolutely guaranteed. Best practice is to maintain local backups and distribute data across multiple protocols.
Q: How does decentralized storage handle illegal content? A: This is one of the most debated challenges. On IPFS, individual gateways (the HTTP access points) can implement content filtering and blocklists. On Filecoin, storage deals expire naturally, and providers can choose not to renew deals for problematic content. Arweave’s permanent storage presents the greatest challenge – once stored, data is very difficult to remove from the blockweave. Arweave relies partly on gateway-level filtering. The tension between censorship resistance and content moderation remains an active area of policy and technical development.
Q: Why do NFTs need decentralized storage? A: Most NFTs are smart contracts that store only a URL pointing to the artwork and metadata – not the actual media file. If that URL points to a centralized server that goes offline, the NFT becomes a token pointing to nothing. By storing media on IPFS (referenced by CID) or Arweave (aiming for permanent storage), the artwork remains more likely to stay accessible regardless of any single company’s server status. The CID also helps guarantee integrity – if anyone tampered with the image, the CID would no longer match. This is a major reason “on-chain” or “decentralized storage” NFTs are generally considered more durable in the collector community.
