Opacity Storage (OPCT) Overview, Pros and Cons

by attrib

What is Opacity?

Opacity is a private and protected cloud storage solution and OPCT is their utility token. With Opacity, payments, accounts, and files are 100% private. At the moment OPCT is only used to pay for storage plans. 1 OPCT is currently pegged to 64GB of data storage but the peg will go when their network will be decentralized. When decentralization will become a thing the token will also be used for staking, competition between nodes and (d)apps.

Nowadays data breaches are very common but with Opacity you don’t have to worry about that at all. Opacity doesn’t require any personal information so you can sign-up for a plan anonymously. They store no information on its users, so their cloud is a perfect place to store private information.

Their way of doing encryption is also interesting. When you want to upload a file via Opacity, the data is split into parts (chunks) and encrypted locally in the browser. This isolation ensures that a malicious actor cannot retrieve the user’s data, as it can only be accessed with the corresponding encryption key: the ​Opacity Handle​.

So without this key no one can access your files. Even if it’s centralized and a hacker gets access to your data, he won’t be able to access it because there’s no way he can decrypt it. Can you imagine how secure and anonymous it will be when they offer decentralized storage? This would be the perfect tool for people living in heavily censored countries like China. Heck, I can name a bunch of industries that will truly benefit from this service for sharing their intellectual property, legal documents and company secrets. I’m calling it, this will be the next Mega.nz!

What can you expect in the coming months?

So yeah, there you have it. A crypto project with a truly working product and not just hype and words. Their CEO hired a complete new team at the start of this year and they’re now with 9 employees. They held an AMA some months ago and they do video updates weekly. For such a low mcap this project has a lot to offer. It has potential to compete against other competitors like Sia. Check out this infographic where you can quickly read the benefits of Opacity and compare them with their competitors. Take a good look at the difference in market cap!

Ok, so what to expect in the coming months?

• ‘Galaxy’ Whitepaper 2.0 for Decentralization
• New website/webUI with improved UI/UX. Beta program will start next week!
• They come with a shareables system, so you can share your encrypted files more easily on social media.
• Mobile app for Android and iOS
• Easier ways to pay for their services
• More AMA’s, marketing efforts
• Decentralization (first tests in Q3)
• API documentation so more people can build their Apps on their platform

What we know so far from decentralization (and the whitepaper):

• Possibility to earn OPCT tokens when hosting a node
• Node providers will require staking as collateral and proof of storage so they support the network and don’t depart without penalty.
• Ecosystem with products built on Opacity (Opacity API available) so (d)Apps can be offered on a Marketplace where developers actually can earn OPCT with their App.
• The current peg of 1 OPCT for 64 GB will go. Storage providers make their own prices depending on what they provide (e.g. offer more data, more bandwidth, data redundancy). There will be competition between nodes.

Now let’s talk about the pros and cons about Opacity. Like I said earlier, I want to be transparent and honest about my findings and not just shill. So here goes:

Pros

• Cheap. As of the day of writing 1 OPCT is 10 cents. You can buy a 128 GB storage plan on their site for 2 OPCT. That’s 20 cents + ETH gas fees (~ 5 dollar). Unfortunately the Ether Gas fees are high but it still makes it one of the cheapest storage solutions. For example: a 120 GB Google Drive storage plan costs you $20 per year.
• New team with a lot of experience, check this Medium post to get some more info about the new hires.
• Talking about experience; their CEO, Jason Coppola worked for Microsoft, Paypal, and Salesforce. He knows how to run the place!
• Low mcap, lots of room to grow.
• No sign-ups required, truly anonymous. You don’t have to worry that your personal information gets leaked.
• Easy to use, the release of the new mobile app and website will have an easy and improved user interface. Think of Google Drive, but anonymous, protected and decentralized.
• Strongly focused on privacy, uses high encryption. Encryption happens on your computer only, even the metadata of the file is getting encrypted.
• A great community with a lot of developers. Check the community page to see what’s being built on Opacity so far. This list is only getting bigger when this project grows and API documentation will be released.

Cons

• Even if the decentralized network will be deployed later this year, it currently is still centralized on AWS S3. End-to-end encryption on the metadata and files is Opacity’s greatest feature, so that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just that decentralization would make it so much better of course.
• High Ethereum gas fees. If you want to buy an Opacity storage plan you pay an insane high amount of gas fees. Although it’s not Opacity’s fault that these fees are so high, I hope this will change soon. Maybe change to another chain?
• Missed deadlines. Originally the new website would be released on March 5 but it got delayed by almost a month. Delays are a common thing in development, so it’s not such a huge dealbreaker. But I thought it’s worth mentioning it at least.
• The project has a dark past, even if it wasn’t their fault: they are a fork of Oyster (PRL). In late 2018 the founder of the project exit scammed by minting tokens and selling them on the market. Leaving all investors, including the team that worked for him empty-handed. Fortunately, he’s in jail now thanks to a 2-year investigation by the FBI and the help of the Opacity team. You can read the full story and indictment here.