Data is the new gold rush that most big tech companies always want to monopolize. Most of them remain dominant thus far but there is too much at stake, especially on privacy and user data control.

That’s why Iagon is releasing, among many other solutions in the future, an easy-to-use blockchain-based storage system for users or entities who want to take charge of their data while eliminating the cost of expensive hardware and software. The creators of Iagon believe data privacy and security are sacrosanct and are core tenets that anchor their protocol.

The Age of Data

A report by Identity Theft Resource Center reveals that the number of data breaches rose by 68 percent to a record high in 2021. As an illustration, there were 1,862 data breaches last year, up from 1,108 in 2020 and 1,506 in 2017. Most systems, the report shows, couldn’t keep up with the targeted cyber-attacks, describing the situation as “alarming” and forecasting even more data leaks in 2022. This could be the case because the data storage industry is expected to cross the $118 billion level in 2025, more than doubling from 2020, expanding at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.5 percent.

In light of this, the Norway-based technology company, Iagon, is building a shared, reliable, and secure storage economy as its flagship product, leveraging the distribution and security of the Cardano blockchain.

Their objective is to release a shared storage platform compliant with existing laws and secure, self-protecting to nullify attempts by third parties to illegally gain access to sensitive data. By mid-June 2022, they had presented a minimum viable product (MVP) to one of their resource providers and had two on-going pilots.

Flaws in Current Data Storage Systems

Iagon engineers note critical flaws that need immediate resolution in the current architecture of storage systems. For instance, the use of data lake architecture, which is a centralized repository for storing structured and unstructured data, is meant to be user-friendly and easy to access, but it is flawed. This is because once this architecture is compromised, hackers often have a field day. Inside the database, hackers can inspect all files, “swimming” inside the system, unrestricted.

Additionally, Iagon developers note privacy breaches, unauthorized data monetization, relatively high costs, and reliability issues, in current centralized database structures.

Iagon’s Solution to Data Security and Privacy

To address these problems, Iagon is innovating and releasing a data model pinned on, among other features, decentralization, encryption, and sharding — where files are horizontally split and distributed across many distributed storage systems. In this setup, Iagon will release a function to overcome challenges faced by databases using the “data lake architecture” by allowing system administrators to freeze the database in cases of intrusions, preventing unauthorized agents from navigating in the unlikely case of a breach.

In Iagon, all files uploaded by users are encoded and “sharded” or split into smaller elements for secure storage by decentralized providers. Only the user who uploads the file and owns the private key can decrypt, retrieve, change, or delete slices of distributed files. Meanwhile, users can also opt to provide storage capacity by running the Iagon node client, and are compensated for their participation. Storage providers are tasked with storing data and thus cannot access or read the sharded files. Since node operators are globally distributed, Iagon is resilient and secure.

The first iteration of Iagon’s decentralized data storage system will use a modified version of the Interplanetary File System (IPFS), a decentralized storage mechanism used by Filecoin. In future versions, Iagon plan to release their own proprietary sharding mechanism, whose features will differ from IPFS’ from a fundamental level.

Additionally, using Iagon, clients will be free to specify where their data should be stored and how they can be transferred. This flexibility enables Iagon to meet requirements spelled out in various jurisdictions like General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, giving them more latitude to implement strict privacy policies, including a zero cookies policy. Third parties wouldn’t freely monetize data from users interacting, as is the case in other applications.

The data storage provider will also be on the Cardano blockchain to guarantee high reliability and better data control. Users can comply with data regulations like GDPR because Iagon will build a mechanism that will, at any instant, group nodes according to where they are located.

Incentivizing Data Storage Providers and Connecting to Buyers

In the spirit of decentralization, Iagon will also feature an open marketplace, dubbed Rubato, for users to trade storage space at any time. The marketplace will use a static pricing model for enterprises and a dynamic version for retailers.

Rubato is a closed ecosystem and connects with Iagon’s Adagio and Fermato. Besides pricing, Rubato maintains liquidity for reward payments and storage depending on supply and demand.

Users who provide storage, that is, operating nodes, receive rewards through Iagon’s Adagio. The protocol will distribute rewards depending on the storage resources committed. Rewards are generated from stablecoins from storage subscribers and IAG, the platform’s native token, from the treasury to top-performing storage providers.

Meanwhile, Fermato offers a secure, smart contract-guided communication channel between storage consumers and providers. Through this interface, Iagon users can subscribe to their storage-as-a-service model and manage existing subscriptions, enabling users to receive, in real-time, the storage costs as per their needs.

Iagon (IAG) Tokenomics

Central to Iagon is the IAG utility token currently on Cardano and Ethereum as Cardano Native Token (CNT) and ERC-20 tokens, respectively. There are one billion IAG tokens in total supply, half of which have been migrated to Cardano. The team has also released an Ethereum to Cardano Bridge for users to instantaneously convert their IAG ERC-20 to CNT’s IAG.

IAG is a utility token and serves, among other functions, payment of transaction fees on Cardano. A part of the transaction fee will be channeled to a fund. In turn, funds accrued will be used to cover development in the Iagon ecosystem, fund operational expenses, and buy back IAG from the Treasury. Iagon also charges marketplace transaction fees, of which a portion is distributed to Adagio and the IAG stakers.

Genius X partnered with Iagon in the ongoing Genius X ISPO. ADA delegators who stake in the GENS2 pool are rewarded with $IAG and $GENSX (at a 50:50 ratio). Additionally, Iagon will distribute two million $IAG as a bonus for delegators.