Durable Decentralized Storage network @ Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress

uh thank you very much so today we were here to give a little bit of a demo on some of the utility and user interfaces we built out for codex which is a decentralized storage uh Network coming online uh soon we're in um test n at this point and it's good to have the opportunity to be speaking at The ethereum Cypher Congress because it's the audience that were intending a lot of the technology that we're building for and I think it's quite important uh considering the fact that many of us have flown halfway across the world to attend Devcon and attend these events to really understand why we've come to this venue in the first place and what it means for us to be in this room so I've been contributing to the ecosystem for over 10 years uh close to 10 years and it's quite apparent that we've been promised a web 3 but there is no decent ization in M3 without decentralized storage so if you're looking for user interfaces or utility for uh a lot of the applications and front end utility that we've been promised you really can't do it without stable coins or having a truly decentralized Network so what does it actually mean to decentralize data storage and what are the consequences of not having that layer within the web 3 ecosystem uh it's unfortunate but as of today most of web 3 is ran by three centralized parties and I don't have to stand here and name them for the audience that uh is currently attending this event and one of the issues with being in this situation is that we're um kind of at the mercy of these organizations or States uh when it comes to censorship lack of data ownership and then also due to the fact that there have been many breaches and outages so when we're talking about data ownership and censorship these issues are not issues until they come to the Forefront for the individuals or participants of these networks in the first place so censorship is not only from Network States or from these platforms but also from the fact that once you don't match their narrative they're very quickly able to deplatform you from their platforms and a lot of this information has become more um visible with the uh introduction and the public awareness of things like the American uh election system and the fact that Elon Musk has taken over Twitter and a lot of the news has been surrounding those uh items as well additionally these networks don't really allow you to have any data ownership so you create a lot of data on these systems and at the end of the day uh they compromise you on these properties and they don't allow you to really have true data ownership on the data that you create on their networks additionally we always hear news about Facebook or all these other big platforms like LinkedIn getting hacked or their data breaches happening but the news item becomes a bit of a headline for a few days and then naturally we forget about it and most of the public the general audience doesn't really care about them Beyond a week or two of that initial shock so I think it's quite important to remember when we actually had control of data within our hands we controlled the access points to this data and what that actually me and it's important that if we are looking for an actual web 3 ecosystem we take back that control and it's not the responsibility for individuals that are currently working on this Tech stack but individuals like yourselves to really pick up this um case for fighting for our freedom to actually own our own data and it's quite important to understand that there are real world consequences associated with this so when the network State compromises a supply chain from to end and there's pagers exploding in people's pockets that means there was a huge breach of data within that supply chain and then the ability for them to actually compromise that within a global scale so there are real consequences of why we should be thinking about what are the attack vectors or how does AI actually impact when data is very accessible to these organizations and now you don't have to worry about how do they monitor you or how do they actually scrape all this data and make inferences on on the decisions that they need to be making and at a global scale this becomes scarier and scarier every day with the Technologies and the resources that we're unlocking so what makes codex different from other decentralized storage networks um and one of the key things with codex is durability so what does durability actually mean within the context of a storage Network so basically codex currently implements Raa coding to efficiently ensure that uh data is always available without storage cost application happening additionally there is a unique decentralized durability engine built within codex that ensures that data remains highly durable by continuously auditing stored data repairing any losses and then incentivizing those individuals who are maintaining and providing the storage uh to maintain that data Integrity on the network itself uh the other part is efficiency so codex achieves efficiency by both optimizing the hardware and the energy requirements unlike other decentralized networks that depend on very highly specialized uh equipment and Hardware codex can operate on standard machines and then also reduces the entry for barri barriers to entry for storage providers so if you've been participating in any of the decentralized storage networks as of now and maybe some of your Hardware has become uh obsolete within those Networks you're more than welcome to hop on codex with your hard drives and start participating and providing storage for those those uh interested participants so as a consequence of this codex is creating a decentralized storage solution that is both cost cost effective and sustainable and then it also makes it a bit more uh scalable within the context of attracting new users to the ecosystem so so I think one key thing to mention within the context of this presentation and the narrative around codex as it stands today is that uh currently the main utility for the network will be for large archival data so it's not the fact that we aren't thinking about what it means for individuals like yourselves to be uploading files images personal data but as the ecosystem develops and as the network develops the current stage that we're at is that it will only be economically feasible for you if you are hosting large pieces of data and maybe archival data within that context So within that sense there are some key use cases that we can be looking at and one of them is blockchain transaction archives so as you may be aware that like l2s are currently um in a position that their transactions histories are uh compressed and not uh full states of the transaction histories are kept on l2s to make it easier uh for the state where to not blow too much so codex provides you the opportunity to actually have the full transaction history of those l2s be secured and available additionally AI is obviously changing the world and the data controls are being controlled by individuals or certain organizations and what does it mean for uh training data to be available in a decentralized manner you need a decentralized storage Network to be able to facilitate those type of use cases additionally if you really want to decentralize web 3 and social media and uh interactivity around those that are important you'll need archives for those social media posts to be PR propagated instead of being on AWS or any of these big data providers so for the current uh iteration of the ux and the problems that we're trying to solve we're looking at just two user personas which one is the storage provider and the other one is the storage client so participants that are willing to offer storage capacity have some sort of actual uh altruistic uh means to be providing some of the storage and wanting to learn a little bit more about how this ecosystem will develop and then also positioning them themselves to be in a good position when uh codex test go go go live and then also individuals who are interested in participating in the ecosystem and understanding how web three Technologies and decentralized storage will impact their daps or the work that they're doing as well so for that reason we've been thinking about uh how can we actually make a lot of this technology palatable for individuals because as you know that if convenience is available for users they're going to choose the convenient way so decentralized storage and DEC calized Technologies become a lot harder to actually make palatable to users because it's not very user friendly the ux is horrible people don't really understand the value proposition even if they understand the complications of not having privacy or data control they just don't have the resources or mental bandwidth to really understand how to run their own node or how to use these interfaces or how to actually interact with a lot of this technology so we're looking at actually providing utility to the end users to demonstrate the value proposition of these networks and then in order for them to actually start experimenting with this technology in a meaningful Manner and so the target users aren't your normal day users or your mom and dads who are going to be looking at at using some of these decentralized Technologies but it's the users that are technically competent and able to actually interface with a lot of the backend and at the core protocol level and are are able to run their own nodes and kind of benefit from the additional services and ux that we're providing on top and our goal is to then use this uh in order to inform a lot of the protocol design that is happening as far as like what are the ux gaps that are happening what are the challenges that we face when we're actually trying to implement this and bring it to Market and having two-sided Marketplace for data storage in the first place so in order for us to do that we've created a a very polished user interface that AR know has led from the development perspective so I'll hand it off to him to uh showcase that a little bit I'll just have to go to the computer to click through okay thanks Akil okay so we have built a nice ux application to make the integration with the Codex protocol easier for users um maybe it will motivate developers to build application on top of codex protocol they can use the um codex JavaScript SDK and we are expecting to receive feedbacks to improve this application and uh to add new features so first uh this application is in Alpha version that mean it's not ready for production so you should not use it for using for storing real data okay so the first thing to do is um to have a codex client not running on your device so the easiest way to do that is to go to the dx. codex. storage website and to follow the test net guide so you will have the Codex client running and you can you will be able to use this application okay so on the next step we wanted to to provide a personalized experience for the application so the user can can type his name so he will see a nice welcome message on the dashboard and he can choose an emoji so let's pick one uh maybe related to Thailand uh yes take hippo and let's name it uh M are you just trying to pump your M coin back or yeah so on the next step um we are doing several checks to make sure that everything is working so the first one is your internet connection the second one is the Codex the connection with the Codex client so if those two are not working you will not be able to move to the to to the dashboard then we are checking the port forwarding so if it's not enabled you will be able to use the Codex features but it will not be reflected on the Codex Network and if the marketplace is not uh enabl you can upload and download the files but you will not be able to use the marketplace features so let's move on and let's check the the dashboard so on the dashboard you have an overview view uh of the feature uh available on codex okay so maybe it uh it looks a little bit overwhelming so uh let's let's explore it together so on the left you have the menu you can just uh click on the links to to check the different features and on the top left you can reduce the menu if you want to to to make more space on your dashboard then on the top you have the app bar so you have the title of the page and on the top right you have two indicators so the first one is for the network so in your in your internet connection so if you are not connected it will go red and the the right bar the bar on the right it will become red as well and if your codex uh client connection is broken so the node icon will become red and the bar as well and if it's running but the marketplace is not uh enabl you will see it orange okay so now um we are currently exploring um different uh feature that we would like to add so the first one is um sign in U features with your ethereum address so you will be able to uh connect your codex wallet and maybe you will want to make some uh interaction with uh your ears profile because maybe you you will want todate your profile metadata to share some CID some information related to your files or maybe you want to share some file information with you your friends for example so you will use the ethereum follow protocol so this is the kind of some options that we are exploring right now so now let's move on the wallet feature uh if you can click on the menu yep so on the wallet uh you will be able to see the Codex token that um you you you have on your wallet uh you will see the price over the time um the income and your SP spending okay and on the right you will have your transactions on the Codex Network okay so now uh one of the most important feature is to upload a file so let's see how does it work so it's straightforward actually you can just uh click on this button and just pick one image yes this one for example uh so you can upload multiple files or just work and drop and it will appear on the on the left so you can easily copy the CID so the CID is the identifier of the file and if you want you can share it with someone so you will be you will be able to download the file and maybe you will receive some CID you don't know what what is the file so you can fetch the Manifest the Manifest is including the metadata of the file so you will be able to check the file name the file type and the file size and after that you can just download it okay so you can organize your files by folder uh so by default we have favorites we will create a new one uh let's name it Defcon okay and we will add the last image so codex. PNG on this folder yep then we will move to the Defcon folder uh so we can sort by file name by size we can filter So currently we only have images so you can just yes filter by by by this this m Tye but if you upload a video or maybe an archive the filters will appear okay so now let's see the details of the last file okay so if it's an image you will see the preview on the top then you will see the details of your files and on the bottom you can see uh the purchase history so if your file is used in a storage request it will appears on the bottom so yes because on codex if you want to make sure that your file is uh available on the network you want to make sure that someone is hosting your data you need to create a storage request so let's see uh how to do it so you can uh click on this econ icon on the menu and then you you will create a new storage request so you can use a previous CID that you loaded or you can just upload a new file and it will um use it will fill the the input okay so then you can click on next and you have a lot of different parameters for your request so maybe you just want to you just want actually to create a simple request for your data so for this use case you can use the default profiles that we have so we have low medium and high so if you click on one of these profile the values will be uh updated and if you know what you are doing you can just uh upload the the different parameters so the nodes uh this is a number of the nodes that you want for storing your your data then you have the contract duration in months um you have the reward tokens for the host so this is the amount of tokens that you will spend uh for hosting the data if the contract is successful and the penality tokens this is the amount of tokens that uh host a host will pay if it doesn't fulfill the contract so for example if he is not able to prove that he's storing the data he will need to pay these uh penality tokens so we are currently um looking for good profiles so maybe it will uh it will be better on the on the on the future um and maybe we are with some feedack back we will be able to to create um um some good profiles so if you can try uh to S codex and give give us some feedbacks it would be great okay so then you can create uh a storage request and it will it will appear on this list so the new storage request is currently uh in Waiting status because codex will try to find a host matching your criteria so if it's the case uh you will see a green icon and the contract will start if and if the if there is an error or maybe uh there is no host matching your criteria you will see an error icon with the error message so now let's see the other side of the marketplace let's see how to host a data so if you have some space on your hard drive so you want to host data in to receive rewards tokens uh you can create availability so an availability just it's just an amount of space that you can allocate and uh you will create some uh criteria and if uh there is a storage request matching your criteria so so you will receive you will store you will host uh a slot which is a part of the file and at the end of the contract you will receive the the reward tokens so on the right you have the blue color is for the availability so for each availability you can have uh slots in red color so if you click on one availability the blue one yes you will see details so for now we only have one slot for this availability but if there is other slot you will see different um red colors okay so let's see how to create uh a new availability click on the plus yep so the first thing is to choose the size of your availability and the not space allocation will be updated then you can can choose the contract duration in days or months for example then you can uh choose the minimum price that you want to receive for storing data and the max collateral so the max penality tokens that you are ready to to to pay if you are not fulfilling the contract okay so let's create uh this availability yep so now it's created and you are ready to to store uh slots so if there is a storage request uh matching your criteria so the slot will appear and at the end of the contract you will receive the tokens okay uh so now let's move on the pi uh details so this um page is showing the P that you are connected with so if you if you have zero PE that means your um codex client is not working so there is something to to fix but if you scroll down you will see the different P ID and the status so if it's active or not okay let's move on the log page so this page is quite a debug uh utilities so you can choose the log level it will be it will update the log level on your codex client note without restarting it then you have some debug information like uh the Codex version if you need some help you can access to the uh codex Discord Channel okay and on the uh bottom right here we have an Sentry uh feedback form so if you are facing some issues you can send the you can fill the form and and send some information okay so the sittings page is displaying um the same information uh that were on the on boarding um so we have an help page you can uh um check it if you want more information and again this application is currently in Alpha version okay so it's not production ready so don't use it for uh real data right thank you Arn know so I think uh one thing to keep in mind is that we're currently still in the foundational and exploration stage of not only the protocol but a lot of the work that we're doing on the ux so it's important for us to really understand how users and individuals are going to be leveraging a lot of this technology and the user friction that they have and the problems that they're going to face and then inform the protocol level team to be able to make those changes at the protocol level so because a lot of the issues that we have have within the ecosystem is decisions are made at the base level that cannot improve the ux when individuals actually get into the ecosystem and start using the technology so it's quite important for us to have individuals like yourself start testing out this technology and then start providing its feedback and it' be great if you guys join the Discord and onboard it to the test net for uh the opportunity to test out what we've been working on and to see how you can actually start enabling um truly decentralized storage to your benefit whether it's through your projects that you're working on daps or just from a personal perspective um additionally uh we have a quick video so we'll just leave that and thank you for your time is there sound secure andess access your data imagine a storage Solution that's not only secure but open robust and designed for everyone CeX offers a reliable storage network data durability engine and Marketplace making managing data simple and secure for individuals and organizations codex is more than just storage it's a durable decentralized data protocol preserving vital knowledge free from censorship from sensitive business information to personal files codex has you covered with access anytime anywhere and a focus on privacy codex ensures that your data remains private and secure our technology safeguards against cyber threats allowing you to focus on what matters codec will include an Open Marketplace where you can buy or sell storage space creating a global ecosystem for data management codex welcomes developers to contribute and innovate as an open-source platform making data storage accessible and Unstoppable join the Codex community and experience the future of Data Solutions ready to explore codex try our test net today and see the future of storage in action visit codex. storage to get started