SIA coin needed to host files?

[borepstein]

Hello there,

I am a newbie, so forgive me for asking very dumb questions, potentially.

But here is the question: I just got started, started my interface, was told I ain't got enough money in the system to upload files (fair enough), decided to go earn some by hosting data and was told I couldn't do that as even for that I needed 50,000 units or some such. Why is it? Why do I need to pay for making my disk available to the community?

Thanks in advance for any and all help.

Cheers,

Boris.

[larsfloe]

I'm new myself, but as far as I understood, you will need to fund your wallet mainly since in order to have people using your storage and pay you afterwards, it is based on contracts that will be done automatically will be taken out and put into the block chain. Each contract also bears a collateral, an amount of coins you will be elegible to pay back in the event you loos a file or step out of the contract in favour of others. In that sense the SIA network is self governing and ensures that nodes can be trusted and that files can be restored from those duplicates that exists ... pretty smart..

[Taek]

That's correct. The 50k siacoins is used as a promise that you will be a good host/reliable host and that you will keep storing data for the next few months. You get the collateral back once you have fulfilled the contracts, but then frequently you'll put the collateral right back into your next contracts.

Over time, you will get revenue as well. And, if at any point you wish to stop, you can turn off the 'Accepting Contracts' field, which means you will stop forming new contracts and eventually be able to collect all of your collateral again.