Sia Network Q2 2023: 12% Increase in Used Storage

In the second quarter of 2023, the Sia network, a decentralized cloud storage platform, saw a 12% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) increase in used storage, raising the storage utilization rate from 19% to 25%, according to a report by Messari. This growth occurred despite a 3% QoQ decrease in the addition of storage contracts, largely due to issues with third-party interfaces.

The Sia Foundation, the organization behind the Sia network, approved seven grants totaling $260,000 in Q2 2023. The largest grant, worth $94,000, was awarded to S5 Network and Apps for the development of a content-addressed storage network. The smallest grant, amounting to $5,000, went to SiaShare for the creation of a lightweight web service for encrypting, storing, and sharing files using the renterd interface.

Sia also made significant strides in its development roadmap. The beta version of its "hostd" application was published on GitHub. This application provides a user-friendly interface for storage providers, an API for managing storage resources and revenue, and an embedded web UI that enables providers to remotely manage storage operations. In a test comparison, hostd outperformed siad, the previous hosting module, with 1.4x faster download speeds and 20x faster upload speeds.

The alpha version of Sia's "walletd" application was also published on GitHub. This application enables users to interact with Sia assets like SC and SF tokens on both hot and cold wallets. It also supports multi-signatures and hardware wallet integrations.

Despite the challenges faced in Q2 2023, including the shutdown of Skynet Labs and the temporary halt of storage uploads to Sia by Filebase, the Sia network demonstrated resilience and continued growth. The increase in storage utilization and the ongoing development of user-friendly applications indicate a positive outlook for the network.