BNB Chain developers have successfully launched the Greenfield storage network on its mainnet. It has been in development and testing phase for more than a year.
Greenfield is heralded as a new data economy within the BNB Chain ecosystem. It works as a decentralised storage-oriented system with a native bridge to BNB Smart Chain (BSC).
During its testing phase, the network is said to have facilitated over 200,000 on-chain transactions involving 150,000 unique wallet addresses. Devs claim that it exceeds the industry standard for uplink and downlink bandwidth, utilising its novel SP architecture to enhance upload and download speeds.
The Storage Providers (SP) are storage service infrastructures provided by organisations or individuals that use Greenfield as the ledger and the single source of truth. Each SP is responsible for responding to user requests to upload and download data, while also serving as the gatekeeper for user rights and authentications.
Here, users have been allowed to upload data and apply unique access and usage permissions before the SPs store that data off-chain with extensive redundancy and backups. Thanks to the blockchain’s cross-chain programmability, BNB Chain users can create their own complementary data products and services. On top of this, users will be able to establish data marketplaces too, where they can freely create, list, trade and sell their data.
Apart from storing large amounts of data, Greenfield also has an array of use cases for others like developers, data managers, business owners, and creators. This includes decentralised hosting of AI datasets, a ‘pay for knowledge’ platform integrating with smart contracts for content creation, IP infrastructure for open tracking, licensing, and remixing of content, data management solutions with decentralised sharing and control, and so on.
On the occasion of its launch, BNB Chain senior solution architect, Arnaud Bauer, said in a statement: “BNB Greenfield is a transformative development in web3 data ownership and data economy, as it provides users with a decentralised alternative to conventional Cloud services. Distinct from centralised offerings, BNB Greenfield empowers users with control over their data, mitigating the risk of breaches and data loss. During the Greenfield Testnet phase and recent BNB Chain Hackathon it has been encouraging to see so many innovative dApps showcase the potential of decentralised file storage with a user-centric focus.”
While focusing on facilitating decentralised data management and access, Greenfield also aims to revolutionise the data economy by easing the storing and management of data and linking data ownership with the decentralised finance (DeFi) context of BSC.
The system is built on a storage-focused blockchain and allows Ethereum-compatible addresses to create and manage both data and token assets. It also natively links data permissions and management logic onto BSC as exchangeable assets and smart contract programs with all other assets. These are some of the key components which sets Greenfield apart from existing centralised and decentralised storage systems.
As mentioned on its website, the ultimate goal of Greenfield is to establish a foundation for new data economy and dApp models, which will undoubtedly aid in the development and evolution of the foundation for Web3. The other networks within the BNB ecosystem, alongside Greenfield are BNB Beacon Chain, BNB Smart Chain, opBNB and zkBNB.
