We are developing a solution for NFT. We want to use the IPSF protocol and Pinata as a tool to do this upload. We are wondering if the IPSFHash created by Pinata to authenticate the content, in case the Pinata service is no longer available (for whatever reason), we can edit our NFT digital asset?
For the purposes of your use case you should think of IPFS just as a way to distribute files, but if you need to maintain your own copy of a file, you need to have your own backups, and not trust a 3rd party. That being said, if Pinata does go out of business or fail for whatever reason then you will be able to once again publish your data (from your backup), to a different pinning service (or your own gateway even) and it will have the same CID it originally did, as long as you know which parameters Pinata used for their chunking…if not the default params.
All of that sounded perfect until I mentioned chunking right? Yeah, the non-predictability of CIDs without the correct chunking settings is the major drawback of IPFS. It’s not like SHA-256 where you’re guaranteed to get the same hash for the same file. With IPFS the only way to be guaranteed to get same CID is if you KNOW all the parameters that went into generating the CID…but I’m sure Pinata probably shares those parameters.
UPDATE…more…: I think therefore really the best way to IDENTIFY a file once and for all is still SHA-256, and that’s true even in the IPFS world.
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Its best to have own IPFS node and use pinata just as backup - use webui for pinbyhash directory with your data. That way CID will be stable because you did chunking, not pinata.
Infura is much more reliable then pinata.
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