ICO Lightstreams

Website: https://lightstreams.network/
Token type: ERC-20 (to be moved to own chain?)
Ticker: PHT
Token Supply: 300,000,000 PHT
Hard Cap 20,000,000 USD
Whitepaper: 33 pages

Distribution of Funds:

Project Summary:

• Decentralized data storage chain using IPFS

• Runs on own instance of ETH chain (fork) with tendermint consensus

• Permissioned blocks

  • Touted as their in house award winning technology

  • Distributed Secure Storage Network (DDSN) where data blocks are
    only exchanged with authorized nodes

  • ETH layer for currency and smart contract capabilities (assumed
    to be EVM)

  • Smart contracts used to provide permissions

  • User signs a digital signature to authenticate the request

• Token

  • Used to pay for network transaction fees

  • Used for purchasing content

  • Used for network governance

• Consensus mechanism

  • Tendermint consensus

    • Proof of Authority (PoA)

    • Block time of 1 to 3 seconds

    • Ability to shard

  • Designed to be able to swap protocols in the future

• Governance

  • Token Curated Governance (TCG)

    • DAO & DPoS hybrid

    • Changes are suggested to authority nodes

    • Authority nodes act as delegates who will, in their own
      circle, accept/reject the proposals

    • Token holders vote for authority nodes who implement their
      proposals

    • Inflation will be determined by same structure

Pros/Cons:

• Pros:

  • First implementation of permissioned storage I have come across

  • Modularised components allow for quick change in protocol should
    the need arise

  • Runs own chain

  • EVM compatible

    • Allows issue of ERC20 tokens on top of their platform

• Cons:

  • Storage solutions have not gained traction for years (Siacoin,
    Burst etc)

  • Database creation and whitelisting is highly dependent on block
    time as well as chain activity

General Thoughts:

I have seen many file storage protocols but Lightstreams is the first
I've seen where access control is done through a smart contract. I like
the fact of using an address as a user and granting that address
permissions to that file system.

I do appreciate storage projects a ton but storage tokens have a history
of just dying off until the next hyped solution comes on. Analysing past
solutions also show that it is not very profitable to 'mine' storage
coins due to the cost of hardware needed (multiple shelves of hard
disks) as well as an expensive cpu/gpu for the mapping of those drivers
(or it would take forever to map the partitions).

I personally do hope that this will be the project that finally gets
traction for IPFS storage but looking from a pure monetary point of
view, this token is probably worth a short to mid term flip.

Rating: 7.6/10

Disclaimer: This is not investing advice and simply my personal thoughts
and opinions. I am not liable for any decisions made from this post. I
am also not affiliated with any investment or advisory firms and do not
engage in activity with such entities.

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ETH: 0xa0b9Ec81eC4dcb269D5cc27E717bb967c441233e