Blockchain does not store data files like images, videos, music, pdf, etc. It only stores the metadata about the digital assets for example transaction history, asset information, contract, etc. Blockchain has a huge number of blocks and all blocks are connected in a chain. So, every block has the same set of information as other blocks on the blockchain. This means data is synchronized in every block of the blockchain.
Now, if blockchain starts saving the big data files, then all files will be copied to all the blocks of the blockchain. This process will consume lots of time and energy. Transaction time will increase as the size of the data in the blockchain increases. To avoid this issue, blockchain only saves the metadata (metadata is data about data) of the digital assets like transaction details.
So, the next question would be where data files are stored and how blockchain can access these data?. The answer is all the data files of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) like images of digital arts, Video files, and Music files are stored in the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS). IPFS is a system to store our NFT assets and other data files. It is the protocol to share and store files. Blockchain only stores the token details, IPFS file address, contracts, ownership, transactions, and other required metadata. So, one party can sell the NFT of his art to the other party and link the original digital asset like an image through IPFS. So the original art files can be stored in the IPFS and blockchain just controls the ownership of that art through smart contracts. Metadata is in small size, hence blockchains are faster because actual art is stored in the Interplanetary file system (IPFS) rather than storing in the blockchain. Pinata is also a very popular IPFS to store NFT Media files.
Blockchain is an excellent way to ensure that the metadata of the NFT is immutable. We can secure the metadata by replicating it across thousands of computers or nodes of blockchain around the world. Ethereum Blockchain has more than eight thousand nodes and hence it is almost impossible to hack a huge number of blocks at the same time.
So, this was the post regarding the data stored in the blockchain and big data files stored in the off-chain systems like IPFS to reduce the size of the blocks of the blockchain. This makes the blockchain operate faster. Contact us for any queries or suggestions. You can also comment and write a brief review about this post to motivate us in the reply section below.
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