The Good Tech Companies - How Xandeum is Revolutionizing Blockchain Storage

Starting point is 00:00:00 This audio is presented by Hacker Noon, where anyone can learn anything about any technology. How Xandium is revolutionizing blockchain storage, by Ashan Pandey. While blockchains excel at computation and temporary data handling, they've historically struggled with managing large-scale data storage, a capability that traditional web servers have enjoyed for decades. Enter Bernie Bloom and Xandium, who are working to bridge this critical gap with an innovative solution that could catalyze what Bloom calls blockchain's Cambrian explosion. In this exclusive interview, we explore how Zandium's groundbreaking storage layer could

Starting point is 00:00:34 revolutionize everything from DeFi to healthcare, potentially unleashing a new era of blockchain innovation. Ashan Pandey. Hi Bernie Bloom, welcome to our, Behind the Startup, series. Please tell us about yourself and the motivation behind building Zandium, Bernie Bloom. Hey, Ashan. I've been working on distributed systems and low-level, close to the hardware, programming for decades, and through that background, I became a blockchain enthusiast in 2013. Over the years, I saw some parallels to artificial intelligence technology. AI had its first hype in the 80s, but couldn't keep up with expectations, so many great minds left the field. It wasn't until the 2000s, with the advent of artificial neural networks,

Starting point is 00:01:18 that AI finally experienced its Cambrian explosion. I think someone needs to spark that Cambrian explosion for blockchain as well, because, sadly, it hasn't happened yet. And I didn't see anyone working on it. So I started Zandium. Ashant Pandey. Can you explain the core mission behind Zandium and how it differs from other decentralized storage solutions on the market? Bernie Bloom. The mission is to unleash the full potential of Web3. As of now, Web3 is stuck in a rut. Can you name a single successful Web2 app that has been ported to Web3 and is successful there?

Starting point is 00:01:51 Everything has to be made blockchain-compatible in Web3, which, in essence, means removing the storage capabilities that every Web2 server has had for ages. Today's blockchains have their CPU, the EVM, SVM, etc., as well as their RAM, which are the accounts. The Ethereum accounts or Solana accounts can only store limited amounts of data but are very close to the CPU and thus very fast. Centralized computers also have disks and file systems that make them versatile to serve all of today's apps. The blockchain doesn't have that disk equivalent today. That's the today's apps. The blockchain doesn't have that disk equivalent today. That's the missing link to get that blockchain Cambrian explosion started. Ashant Pandey. In your view, how crucial are data ownership and privacy in the real M of data

Starting point is 00:02:35 storage, especially in today's decentralized landscape? How does Xandium ensure that users maintain full control over their data while protecting their privacy, Bernie Bloom, data ownership and privacy are absolutely crucial. Decentralization is key, and if you really get to the bottom of things, it's the only reason blockchain technology exists. Decentralization is a huge step in the evolution of humanity. There have been trends, both on the micro and macro level, for eons, that humans strive to be more and more independent and in control of their own destiny. That, in the grand scheme of things, is what blockchain, and specifically Web3, is all about. We must bring self-determination,

Starting point is 00:03:16 self-custody, decentralization of control and ownership to the world of data as well, not just to coding. That's what's driving and keeping me up at night, building that storage layer for smart contracts, so that the story can go on. For Xandium, it's a huge distributed file system that lives on a set of P nodes, our storage provider nodes. These P nodes can be considered part of the smart contract chain, in our case Solana, since they are orchestrated and cryptographically supervised by our modified validator and RPC software. Data is paged into equal-sized pages, a concept borrowed from Unix memory management. The status of the PNodes is kept in the PNDB PNode database inside Solana accounts. The pages are encrypted and randomized so that no PNode operator has a chance to look

Starting point is 00:04:03 into the data they are storing. The key to data ownership is in the Xandium-enabled apps, which we call SED apps for storage-enabled DAPPs. These can request an app-specific level of redundancy, as well as control key management for the encryption. Only the user has the private key, just as with regular wallet accounts, and these are being used to optimally encrypt sensitive data. Ashan Pandey. What are the biggest challenges Zandium has faced in developing its platform, and how have you addressed issues related to scalability and performance? Bernie Bloom. The biggest challenge by far has been coming up with an architecture that can run 100% on the Solana chain. We started out with our architecture being our own L1, based on the Solana codebase. We quickly figured out that being 100% Solana integrated would have tremendous advantages

Starting point is 00:04:52 for us. We could then harness Solana's momentum and developer base. However, it is not easy to design a solution that can utilize our storage layer on a mixed cluster of both vanilla Solana validators as well as Xandium-aware validators. This was a big step for us. As for scalability and performance, as mentioned before, we address these by offloading the actual storage of data from validators to a separate but cryptographically connected network of storage provider nodes, dubbed P-nodes. Ashan Pandey. As Web3 continues to grow, how do you see Xandium playing a role in the broader adoption of decentralized technologies? What industries do you believe will benefit most from your solution? Bernie Bloom. That is hard to say given the nature of our innovation,

Starting point is 00:05:36 a scalable storage layer. When creating Ethereum, the first programmable blockchain, Vitalik Buterin was only speculating about possible use cases. We have a similar situation here, where suddenly smart contract blockchains become capable of storing vast amounts of data. I expect DeFi to profit from it, being able to store documents, like scanned credit reports, right in the smart contract. Insurance and medical applications need a lot of storage, but just porting all the variety of Web2 apps, most of which use petabytes to store their customer data, will become possible. It will be that Cambrian explosion that's our North Star. I can't wait to see that happen,

Starting point is 00:06:15 it's going to be wonderful. Ashan Pandey What is your vision for the future of decentralized data storage? How do you see Zandium evolving in the next 3- five years, both in terms of technology and market presence? Bernie Bloom. The vision is that smart contracts can finally be like normal servers. Execute code, CPU, access, accounts, RAM, and access storage, disk. Right now the whole company is focused on building the product, and once that important milestone is completed, the whole company will shift its focus in 2026. In 2025 we will focus on building and in 2026 we will focus on adoption. There will be Zandium hackathons, grants, etc. to

Starting point is 00:06:57 help spread the word among devs, I.E. among web3 entrepreneurs, that Zandium will make their life so much easier, and make them aware they can build so much more versatile dApps, which we call said apps, storage-enabled DAPPs. Looking into the next 3-5 years, I expect to see one of the fastest adoptions among devs that I have ever seen. Scalable, smart contract-native storage is the missing link that will spark the Cambrian explosion in blockchain that AI saw with ANZ. That means we have all these said apps, each paying Xandium storage fees in addition to the regular Solana transaction fees. Ashant Pandey. What advice would you give to developers and startups looking to build

Starting point is 00:07:39 decentralized applications or services in the current Web3 ecosystem? Bernie Bloom. First imagine blockchain didn't have today's limitations. Imagine you had all the power of traditional IT, including storage, at your disposal when designing your dApp. Then break it down to what can be done with today's blockchain, you'll find it's quite a limited version of what you imagined in step 1. Then build your dApp on today's blockchains but keep the timely advent of a scalable storage layer in mind. That way, you will put yourself in a pole position as soon as the race for building said apps starts. Don't forget to like and share the story. Tip Vested Interest Disclosure.

Starting point is 00:08:17 This author is an independent contributor publishing via our business blogging program. Hacker Noon has reviewed the report for quality, but the claims herein belong to the author. Hashtag D-Y-O-R-N Thank you for listening to this Hacker Noon story, read by Artificial Intelligence. Visit HackerNoon.com to read, write, learn and publish.

The Good Tech Companies - How Xandeum is Revolutionizing Blockchain Storage

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