This project is just pathetic. I started researching this 4 days ago and wanted to figure out whether to invest in MAID, SIA or STORJ.
in the 4 days it was not possible to get an answer to the simple question:
If customers can pay in USD why is it lucrative for Investors to invest in STORJ CoinsA good read about Payment in USD which was already live:
https://safenetforum.org/t/storj-screws-their-ico-token-holders-big-time-by-accepting-direct-fiat-payments/12859/9But what struck me is closed-door/avoid any criticism mentality of the project which in my view is a super indicator for projects you should stay away from.
In the 4 days it was not possible to register an account in their forum. You need admin approval to activate your account. That is something i found pretty strange to be honest, what is the admin checking. I type in a name and an email-adress, there is nothing great to approve to. I even tried it twice in the last days, because i could not believe it - didn't work. Then i went to their reddit and tried to ask my question which was around the lines Could someone explain me why one should hold STORJ tokens? It was nothing aggressive (i didn't even comment on the total wish-washy section in the whitepaper regarding this) just the question, that since customers can pay in USD what is then the worth of the token. I don't exactly know how reddit works, since i am not to often there, but it seems that i got shadowbanned for this. At least no one can read that question, I just see it as grayed out. I must say never happened anything like in any reddit to me. I signed up in the SIA reddit too and posted about havinissues installing the client, and everything was just normal - no shadowbanning etc.
You can make up your own mind on this.
For me it is clear, what are the nice blue coloured graphics on the STORJ website worth, if the don't have an answer to the qeustion, why the token should hold value?? That is like the first question in Crypto, if you don't have an answer to this: GO HOME. Or in other words:
If a project sees in the question "What is your token good for?" a threat that needs to be censored - one should definitely not invest in it.The irony that the project wants to be the censorship-resistant decentralized filestorage is just pure gold. )I trust amazon in a heartbeat more than i would trust this closed-doors, do-not-ask-anything-that-could-be-seen-critical project.
How does STORJ compare to SIA
Regarding SIA: the client has its bugs right now, but the dev team is hard as steel regarding tokenomics: No SIA no Service for customers, which makes the value proposition for SIA very clear.. Unlike STORJ which was premined, SIA runs actually a pow blockchain, storage providers are paid in SIA. So SIA is actually a decentralized storage solution and one NEEDS Sia to be able to use the service. Another huge problem with STORJ in my view is that it is pretty centralized: From the 425million coins in circulation 1 Entity the company holds 300 million!! And they give then the rewards out to deleopers (super decentralized /irony off) And they do sell on a regular basis to finance development. Of course this is pressing on the market driving price down (to the actual value 1 STORJ will have: 0).One problem for me with SIA on the other hand is that it is more tailored towards businesses that want to build a cloudservice for the actuall customers. So it is not that easy to use.
Fazit: When i started my research 4 days ago, i was totally open minded. I found decentralized storage an interesting niche and was looking for which project would make the best investment. In the beginning i was - just by feeling - leaning more towards STORJ - which changed drastically. Mainly due to this cult-like avoid criticism- culture, unclear why one should hold STORJ and that it is by construction pretty centralized. All huge red flags... So i still think about whether SIA is a good investment, but in STORJ i will definitely not invest.
Edit: i checked reddit again and my post was deleted.