A Novel Blockchain-Driven Approach for Decentralized Cloud Storage

Abstract

The exponential growth of digital data has intensified reliance on cloud storage, yet conventional centralized architectures remain persistently vulnerable to unauthorized access, data tampering, and privacy violations. This paper presents a novel blockchain-driven approach for decentralized cloud storage that addresses these concerns through a multi-layered security mechanism. The proposed system fragments a user’s file into multiple independent blocks, encrypts each block using the AES-256 algorithm with PBKDF2-derived keys, and distributes them across distinct nodes of the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS). The corresponding IPFS hash addresses are then recorded on an Ethereum-based blockchain through a Solidity smart contract, ensuring immutability and tamper-resistance of the entire storage index. During file retrieval, the system queries the blockchain to collect all block hash addresses, fetches encrypted blocks from IPFS, reassembles them in the correct sequence, and delivers the decrypted output to the user. The implementation is built using Python, Django, Web3.py, and the Truffle/Ganache development environment, and has been functionally verified across all core user-facing modules.