IPFS and Updating Images

IPFS itself does not have built-in updating capabilities, but this does not mean that you cannot build a system for updating images on IPFS. To achieve this, you need to introduce mutability before the IPFS Content Identifier (CID).

Here's an example of how you can accomplish this:

1. Create a smart contract where users can update their own Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) by submitting a new CID.
2. Although CIDs themselves cannot be changed, this is not a problem. By allowing users to submit new CIDs, you effectively enable updates to the associated content.

Advantages over using a Content Delivery Network (CDN):

• Trust: With a CDN, everyone must trust the provider. However, by implementing the validation logic on a smart contract, anyone can validate the updates on the blockchain.
• Data Integrity: Users can use the CIDs to verify the hashes of the received data, ensuring its integrity.
• Cost: If you want to avoid paying gas fees for each update, you can utilize a custom validator or leverage public/private key cryptography, such as IPNS.

Performance considerations:

• While IPFS itself does not inherently have performance limitations, the main implementation (Kubo) has been optimized for torrent-like functionality rather than performance.
• However, newer alpha implementations show promise in terms of improved speed.
• The challenge lies in deploying these optimized implementations where they are needed within the network.

In summary, by incorporating mutability before the IPFS CID and leveraging smart contracts for validation, you can enable updating images on IPFS while maintaining data integrity and allowing for decentralized verification. Although performance optimizations are still being developed, there is no fundamental reason why IPFS cannot be as fast as other solutions.