In a couple of months it will be possible to upload arbitrary data to the Waves blockchain.

Any blockchain allows users to post data to it, but most aren’t specifically designed for the purpose (in bitcoin, for example, it’s awkward to do and considered bad form to bloat the blockchain). However, the ability to store strings of data is hugely important for any blockchain positioning for real-world use cases. Any application that seeks to preserve an immutable record of any kind — the hash of a patent or a photo, for example, data required by a smart contract, or any other kind of permanent message — needs a solution that is fit for purpose.

Data Transactions are currently being tested on the Waves’ testnet. These allow anyone to post data in different formats to the blockchain. Data inside a transaction is structured as key-value pairs. Keys are arbitrary (case sensitive) UTF-8 strings. Each value has a data type associated with it, and initially, three data types will be supported: boolean, integer and byte string. Further types may be added later. Subsequent transactions using the same key can overwrite/supercede previous data transactions, but there will be no way to erase them.

The maximum size for a key is 100 characters, and a key can contain arbitrary Unicode code points including spaces and other non-printable symbols. Byte string values have a limit of 1,024 bytes and the maximum number of possible entries in data transaction is 100. Overall, the maximum size of a data transaction is around 140kb — for reference, almost exactly the length of Shakespeare’s play ‘Romeo and Juliet’.

Fees for data transactions are proportional to transaction size: 100,000 per kilobyte, rounded up to the nearest kb. Fees are payable in WAVES only. Since the largest transaction size is 140kb, this means it will cost just 0.14 WAVES (less than $1) to post the entire text of Romeo and Juliet to the blockchain.

You can find out more about Data Transactions here.

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