GlossaryAdvanced
Content Addressing
Identifying stored data by a hash of its actual content, rather than its storage location.
Content addressing identifies a piece of stored data by a hash derived from its actual content, rather than by a location-based address (such as a URL) — meaning the identifier itself changes if the underlying content ever changes, making tampering detectable.
This is a common pattern in decentralized storage systems, letting data be verified as unaltered purely from its own identifier.
Examples
- A content-addressed file's identifier changes automatically if its underlying content is altered.
- Content addressing lets data integrity be verified directly from its own identifier.