  Peer-to-peer (p2p) networks are not independent of their peers, and the
network efficiency depends on peers contributing resources. Because shared
resources are not free, this contribution must be rewarded. Peers across the
network may share computation power, storage capacity, and bandwidth. This
paper looks at how bandwidth incentive encourages peers to share bandwidth and
rewards them for their contribution. With the advent of blockchain technology,
many p2p networks attempt to reward contributions by crypto-assets. We conduct
simulations to better understand current incentive mechanisms, assess the
fairness of these mechanisms, and to look for ways to make those incentives
more equitable. The following are the primary contributions of this study: (i)
We investigate and simulate bandwidth incentives within Swarm, a cutting-edge
p2p storage network; (ii) We demonstrate one approach to make the current
bandwidth incentives more equitable; (iii) We use the Gini coefficient to
define two quantifiable fairness characteristics to evaluate reward sharing in
a decentralized p2p storage network.

Networking and Internet Architecture