Storj

Decentralized Storage Networks

S3-compatible decentralized cloud object storage platform that splits client-side encrypted files into 80 erasure-coded shards distributed across thousands of independent storage nodes globally. Provides enterprise-grade durability (11 nines) at significantly lower cost than centralized providers.

Fully P2P Company Medium capture risk

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Details

License AGPL / Apache 2.0 / Permissive

Dev Status Released

Owner Storj Labs, Inc.

Country USA

Start Year 2014

Stack Golang

Funding VC, ICO

Last Investigated Mar 10, 2026

Use Case Domains

Platform Evolution & Sovereignty

Affordances

Self-hostable Data portability Local-first storage

Decentralized Storage Network Attributes

P2P Architecture DHT (nodes discovered via satellite; direct client-to-node uploads)

Overlay Network Global

Content Addressing Yes (erasure-coded shards addressed by hash; file addressed by metadata on satellite)

Local-First N/A (cloud storage model)

E2EE Yes (client-side encryption before upload; zero-knowledge architecture — Storj nodes see only encrypted shards)

Byzantine Fault Tolerance Partial (erasure coding tolerates node failures; Satellite is semi-centralized coordination layer)

Signature ECDSA (macaroon-based access grants); TLS for node-satellite comms

Permissions Cryptographic Capabilities (macaroon/ZKAP access grants with caveats; UCANs-like delegation)

Semantic Web Compatability N/A

Smart Contract No

Protocol Stack Position Application-layer (built on TCP/IP)

Asset / Value Embedding Application-layer add-on (STORJ ERC-20 token used for payment; not embedded at protocol level)

Protocol Maturity / Standardization De Facto Standard (proprietary open standard; widely deployed production system)

Update Policy Mutable (latest only) — objects can be overwritten or deleted; versioning available via S3-compatible APIs

Storage Proof Mechanism Erasure coding with audit (Satellite continuously audits nodes by requesting random shards; failed audits reduce node reputation and payment)

Economic / Incentive Model Fiat/stablecoin payments (node operators paid in STORJ tokens or USD based on storage + bandwidth provided; Satellite manages billing)

Retrieval Guarantee Strong (SLA-backed; 11-nines durability; 80-shard erasure coding means any 29 of 80 shards sufficient for retrieval)