There are many reasons why blockchain technology is called disruptive. However, to get adoption the blockchain technologies should also disrupt the economic status quo and challenge the tech giants established in the pre-blockchain era. One of such projects is Siacoin (SC), a cryptocurrency used as a payment means of the decentralized Siacoin network. This network offers an alternative to Amazon, Google, and Microsoft in such a service as a provider of cloud storage. SIacoin users have more freedom as they can both rent and lend hard drive capacity for smaller pay than the pay collected by the industry leaders. The company itself calls its service post-cloud. In this Siacoin review, we will see the main features of the Siacoin network, sum up the price trajectory the coin had in the past, and provide a Siacoin (SC) price prediction 2022 - 2030.
What Is Siacoin (SC)?
Siacoin is a utility token of the cloud storage platform called the Sia network. Sia is open-source and blockchain-based. The operations take place on Sia's own blockchain. The coin is used to pay for storage rent transactions. The coin is Proof-of-Work-based meaning that Siacoin can be mined. Another use for the coin is trading.
Siacoin is one of the veterans on the crypto market. The coin was designed in 2013, however, it came to life only in 2015. The creators of Sia are David Vorick and Luke Champine.
| The price as of March 2022 | $0.00844 |
| Market cap as of March 2022 | $431,551,077 |
| Rank as of March 2022 | #153 |
| All-time high | $0.0928 (January 6, 2018) |
| Decline (compared to all-time high) | 90.7% |
| All-time low | $0.00001262 (December 28, 2015) |
| Growth (compared to all-time low) | 68438.0% |
| Popular markets | HitBTC, Binance, Gate.io, Crypto.com, Upbit, Kraken |
Sia Network
The goal of the company was to provide people with affordable hard drive space that cannot be censored or anyhow controlled by the intermediary whether it's an organization/institution or some individual. More than that, the data should be stored safe and sound and invulnerable for hackers. The space for storage is seen by the Sia creators and community as a human right and this right shouldn't depend on corporations. Sia is striving to become a leader as an online data storage provider. The platform was created by Nebulous, Inc. which is based in Boston.
Siacoin Network is different from major players in the cloud storage market as it offers a new approach to price setting, security, and so on. Fair execution is performed via smart contracts. On Sia, people don't have to trust entities renting or leasing free space. The process is automated and is taking place with no central servers or intermediary involved. The price setting is not the same as on centralized platforms as the prices are determined by users who offer their storage spaces, the platform doesn't determine these prices. Different owners of free space are rivals for one another so they are interested in providing you with the best conditions. That's one of the reasons why prices on Siacoin are low. As of 2021, these prices are much smaller than the ones set by Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. According to the Sia website, the storage prices on its platform are roughly 10 times smaller than on Amazon. The website cites the price of $1 to $2 per month for storage of 1T of data on Sia as opposed to $23 for the same amount of data on Amazon S3.
The data stored on the Sia network is highly redundant. The files are encrypted and split into 30 pieces of data that are stored separately. The damage of one of these 30 hosts doesn't lead to the loss of the entire piece of data as the file still can be retrieved safe and whole. As long as 10 of 30 hosts are active, the stored data is secured. It makes the data uploaded on Sia highly protected. It is nearly impossible to hack or delete the data trusted to Sia. Encryption keys are not accessible to anyone except for the data owner.
Another layer of security is collateral paid both by users (those who rent the storage space) and renters (those who lease their free space). Some Siacoins are frozen as long as space is used. If the user's data gets damaged, the platform compensates them for the damage via the space owner's frozen money. If the user renting some space isn't paying the rent on time, their collateral is being used to compensate for the lack of payment to a person providing storage.
Sia has just passed 2PB of used #decentralized #cloudstorage! ? Just 5 months ago we passed our first PB. You can see more #Sia statistics at https://t.co/SY7X0fnI7S pic.twitter.com/XZvtFFdFuV
— Sia Foundation (@Sia__Foundation) November 21, 2021
As of December 2021, Sia reports 616 storage providers, 1969 TB of used storage, 1.2 million downloads, and 5.1 PB storage capacity.
Market Performance
Siacoin (SC) walked a long path to where it's now. The coin hit the market in early 2015. For the first months, the price of the coin was neglectable. For instance, at some point in September of 2015, the price reached the $0.00008962 mark. That day the market cap was only $370,531 meaning that even after several months on the market, the entire supply of Siacoin theoretically could have been bought by a single investor. Moreover, this market cap and price was unusually high for that period. Mostly, the Siacoin market cap was below $200 thousand those days. Only in the spring of 2016, the SC market cap reached the $1 million mark. The market cap began to grow quicker at the beginning of 2016. On February 14, 2016, the market cap reached $1 million for the first time. March 5, 2016, was the last time when the market cap of Siacoin was below 1 million. The peak price on March 5 was $0.00008225. In the same period, Bitcoin's price multiplied significantly, pulling the rest of the crypto market up.
In the spring of 2016, the Siacoin price was fluctuating around the $0.0001 mark. At the end of May, the price began to reach higher values like $0.0002 and even $0.0003. However, the price wasn't stable. The summer started with Siacoin hitting $0.0005 for a moment meaning that in three months, it grew 5 times. The price kept on growing throughout June exceeding $0.001 by the end of the month. Nevertheless, stability was nowhere near and soon the price dropped to $0.0005. By November, Siacoin dipped below $0.0004. Only in the spring of 2017, the coin manages to regain the $0.0004 and starts to climb up again. 2017 was big for the crypto market and Siacoin wasn't an exception. In April its price doubled surpassing the $0.0008 mark. In May the growth was tremendous. The day when SC was added to a huge exchange HitBTC, the price reached 1 cent for the first time. In June it was already 1.5 cents — the same price Siacoin has today in December 2021. In the summer, the price wasn't stable and even declined to values like $0.006 at moments. Remember that still, the coin wasn't traded on most of the huge exchanges those days. Most of the summer and fall it was fluctuating well below 1 cent. The next big rally took place in December 2017, the big time for the entire crypto world. The coin took off and fastly broke new records day by day. On January 6, 2018, Siacoin hit its historical maximum at $0.1117 with a market cap of nearly $3 billion. Even though in 2021 many crypto coins had the bigger rally, Siacoin still didn't manage to beat or repeat this success.
Early 2018 was the beginning of the frustrating period for many crypto enthusiasts. Almost for three years, the prices of cryptocurrencies were much lower than was expected by the crypto bulls. Two months after the all-time high, the Siacoin price had only 10% of its peak value. Despite the severe decline, 2018 and 2019 saw a series of important events that made the future of Sia better. Apart from several forks and upgrades to the system, the coin was added to several top exchanges. In June of 2018, Siacoin was listed on Binance and OKEx. In February of 2019, the Siacoin market was launched on Huobi Global. The listing on Kraken followed in October. For most of 2018, the price was around 1 cent. In 2019 it was closer to 0.3 cents and lower. The first strong signs of recovery for Siacoin showed in January of 2021 when the entire crypto market skyrocketed and even notably surpassed the peak values it had in December 2017 and January 2018. Siacoin's success was moderate. The coin didn't regain its historical maximum but rather neared the values it had in the optimistic first half of 2017 reaching around 1.5 cents per coin. In the fall, it even had a higher price (above 2 cents), however, it declined together with Bitcoin in early December. In April 2021, the price has reached $0.055. It was the highest Siacoin price of the latest times. In May, the price has dropped to around 2 cents. Ever since the price has been fluctuating between $0.017 and $0.027.
Price Prediction
It might seem that the inability to reach new price heights in 2021 means that Siacoin's best days have come and gone and we shouldn't expect much from this coin in the future. Probably, we won't see SC traded for 11 cents per coin anytime soon, it is true. But for a trader, the very ability of the coin to grow after a long pause means more than absolute values.
The project continues its development. It is successful in keeping up with the roadmap. Siacoin is still one of the most recognizable cloud storage platforms in the blockchain industry. There is no new wonder brand that threatens Siacoin with its success. Siacoin is not the fastest-growing asset but still, without a doubt, it has the future.
2022
No huge declines are expected for Siacoin in the next few months. The coin was added to Crypto.com this year and in general, is believed to be a promising asset as of now. By the end of 2022, SC won't hit its all-time high but will grow significantly. We expect Siacoin to reach the value of $0.01 - $0.014 per coin by December 2022. If the hesitation of traders towards Siacoin remains at the current level, the price won't make it to 1 cent. However, this scenario doesn't look probable.
2023
2023 —that's when we expect SC to hit 2 cents per coin once more. That will be a natural growth for this mature and decent project. Moreover, the growing popularity of blockchain technology by that time will help the best projects to elevate on the market. If for any reason, Siacoin will be overlooked by new investors, the price will reach around $0.015 by the end of 2023.
2025
According to the plans of the Sia team, several serious partnerships and integrations are scheduled for 2024. That's when the platform will probably go mainstream. Of course, the price will go up faster. Without a doubt, by December of 2025, the SC price will surpass the 4 cents mark. At best, the price might reach the $0.044 level by 2026.
2030
As cryptocurrencies and blockchain-based platforms will become a common thing by 2030, such a useful platform as Sia will be alive and well. It is hard to say if it becomes only a niche product or a leader in its sphere. USD will probably lose its current power by that time so the SC price against USD will rise due to USD decline itself. However, the benefits of the platform will likely boost the SC price even better. We suggest that by the end of 2030 the price might reach from $0.24 to $0.29 per coin.