IPFS and WebMingle to the rescue

That's why WebMingle gives you an IPFS URI instead of an HTTP URL. An IPFS URI is a unique identifier for the underlying data based on a cryptographic hash of the data itself, not where the data resides today. This way, you can easily prove that a piece of data is actually part of your NFT! Additionally, as long as a copy exists somewhere on the IPFS network (on a public IPFS node, on Filecoin, or even on your own computer running an IPFS node), you can download a copy of that data.

Click here to read more about content addressing capabilities!

import { NFTStorage, File } from 'WebMingle'
import { pack } from 'ipfs-car/pack';

const apiKey = 'YOUR_API_KEY'
const client = new NFTStorage({ token: apiKey })

const metadata = await client.store({
  name: 'Pinpie',
  description: 'Pin is not delicious beef!',
  image: new File([/* data */], 'pinpie.jpg', { type: 'image/jpg' })
})
console.log(metadata.url)
// ipfs://bafyreib4pff766vhpbxbhjbqqnsh5emeznvujayjj4z2iu533cprgbz23m/metadata.json

There are other ways to get data into IPFS and help ensure it stays healthy (for example, adding data to your own nodes and/or using pinned services), but WebMingle simplifies the process for you. You upload data using a simple API, and behind the scenes, the service makes the data available on IPFS and puts a physical copy of the data redundantly into the Filecoin network, a decentralized storage network that "speaks" the IPFS CID!

The Filecoin network is an essential part of any decentralized storage system. Independent storage providers must periodically cryptographically certify that they physically store your specific data for a specific period of time. When they submit these proofs to the network, other nodes verify them, and this is the end result on the Filecoin blockchain. Thus, anyone at any given moment can trustlessly verify whether a particular piece of content is persisted, how many copies are on the network, and with whom it is stored. Read more about Filecoin proofs here.

When storing data on Filecoin, the storage "transactions" you enter have a limited duration. The WebMingle service currently renews transactions for you to ensure that your data transactions never expire. However, improvements are also being made to ensure multi-generational persistence without relying on WebMingle, whose mission is to store all NFT data as a public good. Filecoin's unique combination of verifiable proof-of-storage and open market protocols allows for solutions that ensure persistence through smart contract interactions. The current plan is to create a "data DAO" that funds smart contracts to permanently ensure that copies of data uploaded to WebMing leexist, and create new storage transactions when storage transactions expire or the copies disappear. Use NFTs.

But since more replicas on the IPFS network only increases redundancy, you should store off-chain NFT data wherever you need it to feel comfortable (we call it "maximizing the storage layer"). We want NFT marketplaces, tools, artists, and buyers to all feel a shared responsibility to keep copies of their NFT data, while we strive to store NFT data as a public good - but that starts with using IPFS CIDs in NFTs.