At ETHDenver 2024, CESS (Cumulus Encrypted Storage System), a blockchain-based decentralized storage and content delivery infrastructure, showcased its innovations. They not only took the stage at the R3al World @ETHDenver, the leading event for DePIN builders and innovators, but also made their mark at the Polkadot Mini-Summit, engaging the audience with a speech and exhibition. Through these events, CESS highlighted its strides in creating a data value network, emphasizing their contributions to the field.
In an exclusive keynote address to guests and other event participants, CESS Co-founder and Chairman Nick Zaldastani explained the evolution of data storage and access from Web1 and Web2 to Web3 systems and the importance of making the technological leap to having fast, secure, available, accessible, and cost-effective data storage and retrieval systems that can operate at enterprise-grade speeds.
CESS facilitates on-chain data sharing for users and creators and allows builders to quickly and effectively develop and deploy DApps. It also offers the most optimal Web3 solution for storing and retrieving high-frequency dynamic data, thereby reshaping the value distribution and circulation of data assets whilst ensuring data sovereignty and complete user privacy. By utilizing a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) model, CESS drives mass deployment of network nodes globally through incentives.
Speaking on the importance of integration and decentralization in the rapidly expanding Web3 space, Nick Zaldastani said:
“DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) is about letting everyone operate together, whether miners, users, enterprises, or otherwise. It’s about being available, being able to go back in time and utilize all of the solutions of the past, and allowing Web2 and Web3 to integrate and inter-operate. CESS can do that, and we can become the glue that connects, for example, AWS with Google Cloud. CESS even formulated the first-ever decentralized storage IEEE standard, which is a critical stepping stone to facilitating innovation and collaborative growth of the Web3 space. In this way, we are helping to pave a user-focused future for Web3 data storage and retrieval, one that operates with enterprise needs in mind as well.”
As a blockchain-powered decentralized storage and content delivery network (CDN) infrastructure for Web3, CESS streamlines on-chain data sharing and turbocharges DApp development and deployment. It is a highly performant Web3 solution for storing and retrieving high-frequency dynamic data and is reshaping the value distribution and circulation of data assets while guaranteeing data sovereignty and user privacy.
Thanks to an underlying DePIN model, CESS is driving the mass deployment of network nodes globally via carefully designed incentives. It is also solving blockchain’s data availability problem, specifically for Ethereum but for other networks as well. As the first decentralized storage network of its kind, it offers full-stack data solutions for large-scale commercial applications. It is also an open-sourced and public blockchain that is positioned to be the underlying network infrastructure equipped with integrated APIs and SDKs for easy dApp deployment.
Thanks to a variety of innovative technologies and meticulous engineering design, CESS effectively manages the storage space resources of all miners across the globe. One of these technologies is MDRC, or Multi-Format Data Rights Confirmation Mechanism. Developed by CESS, MDRC uses the digital fingerprint of each data as its unique data copyright identifier. By comparing digital fingerprints, this mechanism establishes data lineage and provides vital evidence for digital copyright protection whenever required, thereby ensuring robust safeguarding of data copyrights.
The other is DeOSS, which is CESS’s Decentralized Object Storage Service. The first service of its kind, DeOSS features lightning-fast, secure, and scalable storage for large files with privacy management, making it ideal for enterprise-level users with dynamic data storage needs
By providing these capabilities, CESS helps users overcome common problems in the Web2 and Web3 storage spaces, such as data vulnerability, the inefficient usage of available space, slow data retrieval, and limited commercial applications. CESS guarantees high data availability, the maximization of storage space, fast data retrieval, data sovereignty, privacy management, and rich commercial applications.
CESS also helps users overcome challenges such as high costs, dependence on service providers, transmission delays, network congestion, a lack of standards, limited interoperability, and restricted customization options thanks to its decentralized open resource network, free market for demand transactions, an innovative and diversified data privacy protection system, proprietary and adaptive dynamic scaling network technology, a unified data sharing platform, and highly customizable features.
Nick Zaldastani also spoke about the future of Web3 and the inherent challenges stemming from the rise of AI. He said:
“Data Value Networks are the future, and it is time we get our data back, and take control of it. The evolution has been from Oracle to the cloud to decentralized databases for sharing content, but in today’s world, if we don’t own the data, AI will run it, which is ultimately owned by centralized organizations. It is imperative that networks of the future be decentralized, and anonymous yet support multi-party participation. CESS has its own blockchain, its own CDN, is chain-agnostic and interoperable, and is modular and can plug into different ecosystems. Combining these capabilities forms the basis of the Data Value Network that we provide.”
Today, many users – particularly in industries that use sensitive information, such as healthcare, financial services, and defense/military concerns – do not want to use cloud services but are forced to do so because there are no alternatives. CESS can fill these gaps, and the performance of the platform is a testament to its ability to do just that. The project is now in the v13 of its test net, with over 40,000 nodes deployed over the past few years. Release 0.7.6. was launched in January and at the time of writing has over 4,000 nodes running (with more going online every day). CESS also continues to build partnerships and deploy solutions that are helping to make the Web3 vision of a fair, fast, seamless, and interoperable global data network that is owned and controlled by users a reality.
