Several years ago LNP/BP Standards Association presented Storm protocol suite for decentralized storage and messaging. It operates on top of #LightningNetwork ⚡️ and provides a way of setting up long-term trustless storage channels, as well as an API for structured data propagation, storage and - last but not least - querying.
The first applications demonstrated in summer 2021 to work with Storm were file sharing 📂, chat 💬 and data transfer for client-side-validation #RGB smart contracting system 🔴🟢🔵
Storm provides functionality similar to #Torrent, #IPFS, more recent #Hyperdrive and other distributed data networks - but right next to Lightning channels, with linked Lightning payments and without use of DHTs.
In other words, #Storm may be seen as #Nostr “on steroids” where:
- relays are Lightning Nodes;
- not all data has to be signed, opening use case beyond social networks;
- embedded indexing and query capabilities allowing to build decentralized search engines (“decentralized Google”);
- support for trustless data storage based on zero knowledge with specially-designed form of Lightning Storm channels;
- data can be organized in application-based silos, and construct a DAG-based hierarchies;
- data are binary, may provide a custom application-specific schema for their internal structure.
Our recent #reNostr initiative uses the experience we have acquired while working on #Storm. It targets making #Nostr more scalable and robust, and will also provide an interoperability layer between #Storm and Nostr, such that Nostr data may be hosted by Lightning nodes via Storm protocol ☔️
