Topic: [ANN] [CATA]Flow | NFT | Middleware | Decentralized Cloud Storage - page 19. (Read 2853 times)

Do you have any plan to enlist on any exchnage? secondly, whats the price of CATA token right now, if I wanna buy it now.

Filecoin is a file system. It is more like a cold storage facility, focusing on the storage function itself. CATA has not only built a decentralized file system protocol, but also a flexible metadata query engine on the upper layer that can support SQL. And we will continue to expand the upper layer storage facility to provide a more complete decentralized big data system.

AFAIK we have already filecoin who provide similar things. Can you tell a newbie like me how you differ with already existing projects like filecoin that are providing storage facility.

Issues with NFT Storage
NFT no doubt is the hottest topic in the current decentralized world but the current storage of NFT underlying resources cannot yet be solved on the chain itself. On one hand, the cost of storage on the mainstream blockchain is extremely high. On the other hand, existing decentralized storage solutions are mostly cold-storage and cannot provide metadata-relevant storage and query solutions, resulting in low usage experience.

What is CATA?
CATA provides a complete one-stop solution for Dapp data storage. CATA creatively extends the IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) protocol to provide decentralized storage while achieving flexible metadata management, and is also compatible with SQL queries, providing extremely user-friendly and developer-friendly data access.

CATA Interaction with FLOW
CATA has designed a set of interaction protocols for Flow's Cadence contract layer, enabling integration and full traceability of token transactions and data storage, providing a one-stop solution for NFT publishing, storage, management and distribution. It is fully compatible with Cadence's resource-oriented capabilities, allowing Cadence developers to easily connect NFT contracts to storage facilities.

Core Concept

The current decentralized network is still far from true production deployment, and the scenarios that can be truly implemented today are extremely limited. The main reason for this is the lack of infrastructure. Although throughput of public blockchain increased significantly the storage protocol itself is still at an early stage. Storage solutions in the traditional world often consider both storage and retrieval, but the current mainstream of decentralized storage (such as IPFS, Filecoin) is almost pure storage, which cannot meet the requirements of data retrieval and content delivery. And some bandwidth-based data distribution projects (such as Meson Network) are also difficult to meet flexible query requirements.
CATA project begins in 2015 with goal of developing a more powerful distributed storage protocol and providing more flexible and user-friendly features for the storage system to create a more complete infrastructure forthe decentralized world.
The underlying layer of CATA is a general decentralized file system that accounts for storage and retrieval capabilities. Above the file system layer, CATA provides a flexible metadata management engine. In the current phase, CATA will leverage NFT as the first use case and collaborate with Flow Blockchain to provide users with a one-stop NFT platform.

Distributed Storage and Retrieval: as a fundamental capability of decentralized storage, data should be persistently stored on the network and ensure permanent availability. In addition, the CATA protocol guarantees high storage performance, supports reading and writing large amounts of data, and achieves practical cost. Compared to cold storage, CATA puts more design energy on retrieval and supports content-based flexible queries (instead of just file download) to meet fine-grained data organization requirements (e.g., NFT classification retrieval).

Metadata Engine: on top of the underlying decentralized file system, CATA has developed an independent metadata layer, Minerva. Minerva combines the serverless query engine with the underlying storage protocol. The CATA node is not only a storage resource provider, but also a service provider for the query engine. It is responsible for storing and querying structured metadata as well as parsing and tasking query requests. Therefore, users can flexibly define and decentrally manage structured and fine-grained metadata. At the same time, Minerva provides support for SQL queries, supports indexing, sorting, searching, and other semantics to meet the needs of Dapp developers, and minimizes dependency on centralized storage solutions.


Full lifecycle solution for NFT storage: the current NFT scenario relies on blockchain networks (e.g., Flow or ETH) to build a marketplace, and metadata storage often relies on centralized storage solutions (e.g., AWS), or content is stored on a decentralized storage protocol (e.g., IPFS) and then linked to the on-chain marketplace through additional operations, which negatively impacts the NFT user experience. The CATA storage protocol extends from the circulation layer on the blockchain, the Minerva metadata layer, to the underlying system layer, covering the business logic of NFT data storage, the associations between the on-chain and Off-chain worlds, and the entire process of token circulation. It provides a one-stop NFT experience.


CATA Distribution
The total number of CATA tokens we plan to issue is 20,000,000 for network building and community governance. And the CATA tokens are required to be distributed to the world in the following manner.
1. Mining. A portion of the tokens will be distributed  as network incentives to workers who provide hardware resources to the CATA network.
2. Ecosystem Building. A portion of the tokens will be used for ecosystem building such as incentives for qualified contributors. Also, a portion of the tokens will be set aside for subscriptions by institutions and community participants.
3. Team&Foundation Reservation: A portion of the tokens will be used to build the technical team and cover the operational costs.
4. Signup Educational Program: The purpose of the program is to spread knowledge of decentralized storage around the world, and enable more users and Dapps to experience the new manner of decentralized storage service provided by CATA .Our goal is to reach as many people and decentralized projects as possible with our educational programs before running out of funds.
5. Bitcoin Program: A portion of the tokens will be set aside to be distributed to holders of Bitcoin and Flow to build early reputation in the existing decentralized community as well as in the mainstream NFT community.


Community Ambassador Recruitment
CATA is a community driven project and offers incentives for expanding the community.
Anyone who participates in CATA community development (construction and management) and meet corresponding standards will be awarded with privilege for token sale.
They need to establish a community for management and meet corresponding standards, Community ambassadors can get the amount of early-stage community financing and participate in the early-stage construction and development of CATA. At the same time they have to contribute to CATA, build a community and manage it. The screening system should be as strict as possible.

Growth Pathway

Jr Ambassador -> Working group -> Regional Ambassador -> Hero Ambassador

Application for Community Ambassador.

Those who want to join the recruitment can contact us through email: [email protected] . Submit application with following points:

• Understanding of CATA.
• Why you would like to join CATA ambassador.  
• The roadmap.
• Add Tag: CATA-ambassador

Jr Ambassador
CATA team will arrange a brief conversation based on your application. Applicants will become Junior Ambassador and enter a 3 month apprenticeship period after undergoing a telephone interview. During this phase, Jr Ambassador can work with CATA core team.

Working group
Those who complete the "Milestone" after 3 months will formally graduate and can join any of the following working group of CATA:
Transaltion Team Technical Team Offline Meetup Online Activities & Group Management.

• Translation Team.
• Technical Team.  
• Offline Meetup.
• Online Activities & Group Management

Senior Ambassador
Applicant can reach Senior Ambassadors when they pass the working group for at least 3 months.

Regional Ambassador
Applicant can reach Regional Ambassadors after 3 months (9 months) based on there willingness and the completion of Milestone


What you need to do?
▪ Code contribution or improve official documentations
▪ Advocate for CATA in conferences, workshops, seminars and meetups
▪ Warmly welcome and guide new members to join the CATA platform.
▪ Discover collaborations and other forms of opportunities that CATA can participate in.