Storing files MC vs IPFS

Question

Hi,

I would like to know whats the difference and advantage of storing files on Multichain than in IPFS.

And to store a file on multichain could you help me with the steps.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You could store files in IPFS and then just publish hashes on the MultiChain blockchain. Or you could store files in MultiChain as off-chain stream items. This is conceptually similar, since only hashes are embedded in the blockchain and the data itself is delivered peer-to-peer. But the key advantage is that MultiChain takes care of everything for you. This subject is covered in depth in this blog post:

https://www.multichain.com/blog/2018/06/scaling-blockchains-off-chain-data/

Comments

In this case any node which subscribe to a stream will be getting the actual data from the publisher's local storage and store it in its own local storage.

The only difference I can see is Hashing the orginal file and retrieving the file back from Hash is being done by IPFS api's itself, while in multichain we have to handle that manually with own API's.

provide your comments on this.

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First the subscriber won't necessarily get the data from the publisher's local storage – they could also get it from another subscriber's local storage. Either way the data is always verified against the on-chain hash to ensure it's unmodified.

With MultiChain you have to do *less* that using IPFS, because the process is fully integrated and transparent as part of publishing a stream item and subscribing to that stream. You don't have to think about hashes at all, it's all taken care of for you.