Title: Making the Right Choice for NFT Projects: Arweave vs IPFS
Introduction:
When operating an NFT project, you may face a dilemma: “Should I use Arweave for one-time payment (storage fees) or opt for Filecoin’s pay-as-you-go model?” Additionally, you may wonder how long your files can be stored. This article explores the storage, maintenance, and accessibility of files on Arweave and IPFS, and the impact they have on the reliability and longevity of digital assets.
Arweave’s File Lifecycle:
What is Arweave?
Arweave is a decentralized blockchain that aims to securely and permanently store your data on the chain. With a one-time upfront payment, you can ensure that your data is stored for at least 200 years, equivalent to the lifespan of two individuals.
Arweave eliminates the need for monthly maintenance fees, retrieval fees, or any hidden costs, guaranteeing the permanence and immutability of your data. Its predictable cost structure is a significant advantage, particularly for NFT project owners, as it ensures the permanent accessibility of artwork, thus enhancing the project’s value.
Your one-time payment ensures that there are at least 20 copies of your data stored in the network. Redundancy in backups enhances data security and ensures stable operations in case of node failures or network issues.
IPFS and the File Lifecycle with Pinning Services:
IPFS is not a storage platform but a decentralized file-sharing protocol. It uses content addressing to identify files, allowing global access to data without relying on centralized entities. As long as at least one node stores the data, it remains accessible in the network.
This is where pinning services come into play. File pinning serves as an economic incentive layer to maintain data on IPFS nodes. Services like Filecoin and Pinata offer monthly subscriptions to keep data pinned and reward IPFS nodes, similar to Google Drive or Dropbox.
Pinning services typically store your data on 3 to 6 nodes. This limited redundancy poses a threat to the long-term security of data, as the loss of any of these nodes due to failure or disconnection puts the data at risk.
According to blockchain explorers, data stored using Filecoin’s pinning services has an average lifespan of less than a year. If not renewed, there is a risk of data deletion beyond this timeframe.
To manage the accumulation of unpaid files, IPFS has a “garbage collection” mechanism that automatically cleans un-pinned data from node caches to free up resources for new files. Similarly, if you stop paying for Dropbox, you lose access to the data, and it gradually gets deleted over time. This is another concern you can avoid by using Arweave, where data is permanently preserved once uploaded.
Risks Faced by Your NFTs on IPFS:
When operating an NFT project, you must balance multiple priorities. Worrying about the security of your NFT assets while paying an additional subscription fee can be daunting.
Pinning service costs can unexpectedly increase, resulting in higher operational costs. If your NFT project cannot sustain these expenses, you risk losing access to your NFTs. This can be a challenge for small projects or individual artists.
IPFS warns users that pinning services are not responsible for maintaining their data and cannot guarantee their continued operation. If your pinning service shuts down, your data will no longer be stored.
IPFS cautions that these pinning services’ continuity cannot be guaranteed.
Several pinning services, such as Estuary and alwaysNFT.cloud, have already ceased operations, leaving users to search for alternative solutions.
If you are concerned about the longevity of your NFT assets, you would need to use multiple pinning services to achieve the same level of security provided by Arweave. This approach increases costs and complexity, whereas Arweave only requires a one-time payment for permanent storage, making it extremely simple.
Choosing the Right Solution:
While IPFS offers flexibility and decentralized sharing, it requires active maintenance, ongoing payments, and reliance on third parties to ensure data security. This can be an unnecessary burden for busy NFT projects and creators with large communities.
We recommend using Arweave (we admit we may be biased).
We created Akord to help creators like you store valuable assets permanently on-chain.
With no hidden fees and just a one-time payment, your data will be worry-free and everlasting.