Swarm Community Call, 23 February - Recap

TL;DR

• Storage price recalibration by 6000x
• Data Upload Sponsorships
• First public registries are starting to evolve on Swarm
• Dig deep into the Schelling game with the MonSI app

Storage price recalibration by 6000x

The main topic of the February Swarm Community Call was the postage stamp price calibration, which took place on 22 February. The recalibration increased the price of storage by 6000x. According to Gregor Žavcer, director of the Swarm Foundation, this move changed the narrative for Swarm, as providing storage and bandwidth to the network is no longer just an altruistic endeavour, but should reward the node operators for their contribution.

"It is important to emphasise that this is the beginning of the journey. This is an intermediate step towards the release of the so-called Price Oracle later this year, which should dynamically adjust prices in line with supply and demand. This, in my opinion, is when Swarm as a network will really start to shine, because at a fixed price the mechanics of the network are not adjusting in size based on the data available," Gregor explained how this increase precedes a more important series of events.

Callum Toner of the Research Track echoed this sentiment, adding, "That's what turns being altruistic into being actually meaningful. Depending on the amount of data and the number of nodes in the network, it should be profitable for you. And that's the reason for the higher price and the price calibration in the first place. So I think it's a fantastic opportunity for node operators to take advantage of this and capitalise on the incentives that are being offered. And I think we should see those results in the coming weeks and months as we get closer to the end of the roadmap for storage incentives."

Data Upload Sponsorships

Inextricably tied to the storage price increase is data, and some types of data help make the world a better place. The Swarm Foundation would especially like to see these kinds of data find a home on the Swarm network. So, if you have a dataset that you think is good for humanity, go to https://my.ethswarm.org/uploads and apply for a sponsored data upload.

First public registries are starting to evolve on Swarm

An exciting update also came from the Fair Data Protocol team, called the Graffiti Feed. This is still in the form of a Fair Data Improvement Proposal and the idea behind it is to have a public place where anyone can write to and read from. According to Črt Ahlin, it will form the basis for the first public registries of data on Swarm. "Imagine when you upload your data, you can register your upload in the Graffiti Feed and then someone can index it and search engines can be built on top of it," he explained one possible use.

Besides Graffiti Feed, the Fairdrive Desktop App received an update that allows individuals to own private and shared pods and shared pod support. You can also sync pod contacts and content, or work with different pods that behave like folders in Fairdrive.

A new version of the browser extension Blossom has also been released, which will soon be supported by the Fairdrive Web App and will be able to communicate with the underlying Fair Data Protocol.

Dig deep into the Schelling game with the MonSI app

The last part of the Call was reserved for the demonstration of a community-driven MonSI application that meticulously follows the process of storage incentives redistribution, the so-called Schelling game.

Its creator, Swarm Foundation Discord member Ldeffenb, explained that it works as a monitor that extracts information from the storage incentive blockchain contracts and converts it into a user-friendly display.

It shows all the stakes of every node that have ever been staked based on its overlay address, provides a historical overview of the Schelling game rounds, the players that are in the current round, and it even shows an interpretation of the transactions from the redistribution contract.

The next Swarm Community Call will be held on 30 March at 17.00 CET on the Swarm Foundation Discord (add to calendar). Already have a question for the teams building the Swarm network? Send them a question by using this online form.

We are looking forward to seeing you there!