How do you get over the fear of reaching out far beyond your means because you see something on the horizon that you want to reach, but can't see the steps you need to take, the resources you need to gather, or the skills you need to learn?
You tell a story.
I'm not a programmer/coder. I understand enough about programming to build some very simple javascript and php web pages, and I felt really good about that back in the early 00's. But I've been too busy with life to do much else with programming, and while it has always been a glass wall or ceiling I've kept busy doing things that really matter to me, my family and etc.
But I get ideas. Cray cray ideas that could transform the world if I could see a path and had time to make it happen. Or if others could see it. I know everyone is busy doing their own thing, dancing to their own music, working in teams to get things done.
I had coder friends about a decade ago, but I've lost touch. Now I watch the notes on Nostr and enjoy the noise. Can't understand a lot of it, but it feels good that people are working on things they enjoy, things that they believe will change things for the better.
Then an idea hit me. I looked at what existed, and asked the question that comes up again and again. Is that the best we can do? There has to be a better way of doing this. What am I talking about? File storage. Distributed file storage. Distributed global file storage systems that actually work, that can get you the file you want/need, from wherever the file is in the world to wherever you are. I'm familiar enough with the options out there to know that IPFS is a good foundation, but the attempts by Protocol Labs to build an economic layer are ... less than ideal. They ignored Bitcoin and launched their own token. Now it's a high level resource hog with no support for real people.
Time for a new idea.
I've been brainstorming an idea I call IPFS Sats, which would be a protocol that layers economic incentives onto the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) using Bitcoin's Lightning Network (LN). It's envisioned to make decentralized storage sustainable and user-friendly, solving issues like data decay and free-riding without new tokens or high barriers. At its core, IPFS Sats lets content creators fund persistence upfront, hosts earn passively, users access freely, and developers can build seamless apps. Let's break it down by who benefits and how it works.
For content creators—like musicians, filmmakers, or writers—IPFS Sats starts with you uploading your work (a song, movie, or article) to IPFS, generating a unique Content ID (CID) for tamper-proof integrity. You commit a small amount of BTC to an "LN Yield wallet"—a pooled fund that generates yields from LN routing fees or Bitcoin DeFi (think 5-15% APY). This wallet subsidizes the hosting costs, paying nodes per-access to keep your content available forever without constantly charging you fees. Retrieval is free for fans, encouraging virality, but if they love it, they can "zap" sats directly to you or the wallet via LN tips—boosting the fund to attract more hosts and scale distribution. No ads, no middlemen; just direct appreciation amplifying your reach. Start small, go viral, and the bigger the wallet the more hosts are incentivized to help boost the signal.
Node hosts—the backbone of the network—earn passive income by pinning CIDs and serving blocks. With IPFS Sats, you run the app on your spare hardware (desktop, server farm, or even cloud), allocating space and connecting to an LN daemon. When users request content, you get paid per-access from the yield wallet's earnings—atomic, trustless swaps via HTLCs ensure "delivery or no payment." Stack yields from your LN channels (routing fees up to 10% APY) or DeFi, lowering costs to near-zero. For average folks with extra drive space, it's set-and-forget passive sats; for pros building petabyte farms, scale up to industrial earnings without Filecoin's collateral headaches.
App users—whether browsing music, watching videos or films, or reading articles—get the best deal: free, instant access to verified content without paywalls or ads. You discover via Nostr events (pointing to CIDs), and IPFS Sats handles on-demand fetching from incentivized hosts—subsidized by the creator's CID based yield wallet. If you appreciate the work, zap sats voluntarily directly to the creator or the CID's wallet—it's like a tip jar that boosts availability for everyone. No upfront costs mean more exploration, and the system's resilience (multiple hosts funded by yields) ensures content stays up, even for niche stuff.
Developers building on IPFS Sats can create killer apps for media sharing, social feeds, or archival tools, using the protocol's APIs for easy integration. Embed CIDs in Nostr events for discovery, leverage the app's modular components (Kubo/Helia for IPFS, LND for LN) to add features like yield wallet management or zap buttons. The cross-platform SDKs (Go/JS/Rust) support mobile (photo apps), desktop (passive hosting), and cloud (scaling), with tutorials for quick prototypes. By tapping Bitcoin's ecosystem, you build sustainable dApps where creators fund, users zap, and hosts earn—unlocking Web3's true potential without reinventing storage.
What do you think, Nostr? Could this end ad-driven content and start an appreciation era? Feedback welcome, because this is a new idea and I need coders. #IPFSSats #Nostr #Bitcoin #LN #DecentralizedStorage