TAPEDRIVE

Your data, permanently recorded — uncensorable, uneditable, and here for good.

TAPEDRIVE makes it easy to read and write data on Solana. It's over 1,400x cheaper than using an account. It works by compressing your data into tiny on-chain proofs. A network of miners then solve challenges in parallel to secure your data. It's entirely on Solana, so there's no need for side-chains or consensus overhead. The network rewards miners with the TAPE token, capped at 7 million (decaying ~15 % per year) and aligns incentives for long-term growth.

[!Important] The program is deployed on the Solana devnet, but not on mainnet yet. An audit is needed before we roll it out. Stay tuned for updates!

Quick Start

You can install the CLI using Cargo:

cargo install tapedrive-cli

Write

tapedrive write <filepath>

tapedrive write -m "hello, world"

Read

tapedrive read <id>

How It Works

Whether you're writing a message, a file, or something else, tapedrive compresses the data first, then splits it into chunks that are writen to a tape on the blockchain. Each tape stores the name, number of chunks, byte size, data hash, and the tail of the tape.

When you want to retrieve your data, tapedrive reads the tape sequentially from the tape network or blockchain to reassemble the original data.

TAPENET

Beyond reading and writing, users can participate in the tape network. There are 3 primary functions, all can run on the same machine.

We have an easy install script for running a node, learn more here.

Archiving

If you'd like to either run a public gateway or a miner, you'll need an archiver. You can run one with the following command.

tapedrive archive

Mining

You can help secure the tape network by running a miner. You'll be rewarded with the TAPE token.

tapedrive register <name of your miner>

tapedrive mine <pubkey from registration>

Web

Miners on the network may run public gateways. You can can run the web service like this.

tapedrive web

The web service allows users to fetch data using a JSON RPC protocol similar to Solana. The API is accessible at http://127.0.0.1:3000/api via HTTP POST requests when running tapedrive web.

The following methods currently exist.

getHealth

Retrieves the last persisted block height and drift.

Parameters: None (empty object {})

Returns:

{
  "last_processed_slot": <number>,
  "drift": <number>
}

Example:

curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:3000/api \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":5,"method":"getHealth","params":{}}'

Response:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "result": {
    "last_processed_slot": 123456,
    "drift": 0
  },
  "id": 5
}

getTapeAddress

Retrieves the Solana pubkey (tape address) for a given tape number.

Parameters:

{
  "tape_number": <number>
}

Returns: Base-58-encoded Solana pubkey as a string.

Example:

curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:3000/api \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"getTapeAddress","params":{"tape_number":42}}'

Response:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "result": "5P6XDRskXsUxyNUk3kA6oU61kWkLxgMX7W5mTvZ3hYRS",
  "id": 1
}

getTapeNumber

Retrieves the numeric tape ID for a given Solana pubkey (tape address).

Parameters:

{
  "tape_address": <string>
}

Returns: Tape number as a number.

Example:

curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:3000/api \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":2,"method":"getTapeNumber","params":{"tape_address":"5P6XDRskXsUxyNUk3kA6oU61kWkLxgMX7W5mTvZ3hYRS"}}'

Response:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "result": 42,
  "id": 2
}

getSegment

Fetches a single segment’s data by tape address and segment number.

Parameters:

{
  "tape_address": <string>,
  "segment_number": <number>
}

Returns: Base64-encoded string of the segment’s raw bytes.

Example:

curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:3000/api \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":3,"method":"getSegment","params":{"tape_address":"5P6XDRskXsUxyNUk3kA6oU61kWkLxgMX7W5mTvZ3hYRS","segment_number":3}}'

Response:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "result": "SGVsbG8gV29ybGQ=",
  "id": 3
}

getTape

Retrieves all segments and their data for a given tape address.

Parameters:

{
  "tape_address": <string>
}

Returns: Array of objects, each containing:

[
  {
    "segment_number": <number>,
    "data": <string> // Base64-encoded
  }
]

Example:

curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:3000/api \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":4,"method":"getTape","params":{"tape_address":"5P6XDRskXsUxyNUk3kA6oU61kWkLxgMX7W5mTvZ3hYRS"}}'

Response:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "result": [
    {
      "segment_number": 0,
      "data": "SGVsbG8="
    },
    {
      "segment_number": 1,
      "data": "V29ybGQ="
    }
  ],
  "id": 4
}

Contributing

Fork, PR, or suggest:

• Faster writes/reads (turbo mode).
• Encryption.

Take a look at the Makefile if you'd like to build or test the program localy.