Siacoin (SC) is the native utility token for Sia, a blockchain-based, decentralized cloud storage platform. Sia serves as a secure, trustless marketplace for cloud storage, allowing users to offer their unused storage space for lease. Smart contracts facilitate and enforce the agreements and transactions, with Siacoin serving as the medium of exchange for purchasing storage on the network. The primary objective of the project is to establish itself as the "backbone storage layer of the internet." Initially announced in May 2014, Sia underwent revisions and was re-announced in May 2015, with its official launch occurring in June 2015.

Sia was initially conceived in mid-2013 by David Vorick during his studies in computer science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He shared the concept via email with Luke Champine, a college friend, who became involved in the development shortly after Vorick presented the idea at a HackMIT hackathon in September 2013. The project was officially named Sia in early 2014, a nod to the Egyptian god of perception. They established the company Nebulous, Inc., which remained the primary developers of Sia until the establishment of The Sia Foundation in 2021. The Sia Foundation, a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in the United States, is currently the steward of the Sia project. The Foundation's objectives and responsibilities are extensive: maintaining core Sia protocols and consensus code; supporting developers who build on Sia and its protocols; promoting Sia and fostering collaborations in various sectors and communities; ensuring users can easily acquire and securely store siacoins; developing solutions for network scalability; implementing hardforks and guiding the community through these transitions; and much more. The Sia Foundation is funded through a block-subsidy and initiated an active grants program in October 2022. The Grants Program aims to support innovative projects that leverage Sia to enhance the network and ecosystem.

According to its whitepaper, the long-term objective of Sia is to compete with existing storage solutions. It positions itself as a direct competitor to major cloud storage providers such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Owing to its decentralized nature, Sia can offer competitive storage rates. Files stored on the Sia network are divided into 30 encrypted segments, with each segment uploaded to a unique host to ensure redundancy. The agreements between uploaders and hosts are recorded on Sia's blockchain and are enforced through smart contracts. Siacoin serves as the payment method on the network, with renters paying hosts using SC, and hosts locking SC in smart contracts as collateral.

Siacoin does not have a maximum supply. As a utility token designed to facilitate transactions through smart contracts, the project has indicated that an unlimited supply is necessary to accommodate the effectively boundless amount of data that can be generated and stored. New Siacoins are introduced as mining rewards via the Sia blockchain’s proof-of-work mining algorithm. The initial mining reward was set at 300,000 SC and decreased by 1 SC with each block mined until it reached 30,000 SC in July 2020. The block reward is now permanently fixed at 30,000 SC. With the establishment of The Sia Foundation, the block reward was doubled, with an additional 30,000 SC per block allocated to the Foundation on a monthly basis. Siacoin is removed from the ecosystem when hosts forfeit tokens or their collateral remains unrefunded due to improper actions. Moving forward, the development team plans to implement a proof-of-burn mechanism requiring hosts to burn a small percentage of their revenue to verify their authenticity and good intentions. The Sia development team mined approximately 100 blocks (around 30 million SC) before publicly releasing the mining algorithm. The platform's team and investors reportedly hold less than 0.1% of the total Siacoin supply.

The Sia blockchain is safeguarded using a proof-of-work consensus algorithm, wherein miners compete to add new blocks to the blockchain, and a majority must confirm a record for it to be posted. In June 2017, Sia co-founder Vorick asserted that proof-of-work is the optimal method to secure the network, as it limits a malicious actor's capacity to attack the network due to significant energy requirements and hardware costs. Sia’s development team emphasizes that requiring hosts to provide collateral in order to participate in the network’s operations reduces the incentive for malicious actions. Furthermore, the team highlights the network's resilience by fragmenting uploaded data into 30 segments that are distributed globally. This configuration ensures that the network remains impervious to disruptions, except in the face of massive natural disasters or geopolitical activities. As long as 10 out of 30 hosts remain operational after an attack on the network, files can still be retrieved. For comprehensive details and statistics about Siacoin, you can now refer to Eulerpool.

Siacoin is available for purchase on various cryptocurrency exchanges, including Binance, OKEx, Huobi Global, and Upbit, among others. It can be traded on spot markets against fiat currencies such as the U.S. dollar and the South Korean won, as well as cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), and the stablecoin Tether (USDT). If you are interested in purchasing Siacoin or other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Eulerpool offers a straightforward, step-by-step guide to educate you about crypto and how to acquire your first coins.