This structure maintains honesty across the network, offering a highly performant, secure, and reliable approach to #decentralized cloud storage.

Contracts include a Merkle root for data verification and a predetermined resolution date. If both parties agree, the contract can be modified to include additional data or the renter can transfer additional payment to the host.

Hosts are challenged to provide a random Merkle proof that they're storing the data as agreed. If they fail to do so, the locked collateral is burned, incentivizing hosts to keep their agreements.

tl;dr🧵: On #Sia, storage contracts enable secure, direct agreements without requiring trust. They enable instant payment for resource consumption and incentivize storage providers to keep data available.