In this section, we are going to learn how to deal with large files and documents on any blockchain. As mentioned umpteen times before, blockchains are usually public in nature, and therefore, privacy and security should be of prime importance. A blockchain contains all of the data that is filled into it, which in the case of Ethereum causes the cost to increase—that is, more gas is paid per transaction. As this isn't something that we want, we'll use a few workarounds.
One of these workaround is Swarm. There is also IPFS, or the InterPlanetary File System, which we learned about briefly in Chapter 1, Workflow Setup and Thinking Blockchain. You could also use your own server to store the data and larger files.
Swarm and IPFS are not blockchains, but they do follow the common principles of decentralization, making the two of them decentralized file-storage systems that are tamperproof.
A file is not decentralized in the beginning. When a file...