Source: Adobe / choostudio
Decentralized storage network Filecoin launches its long-awaited mainnet today, creating a reason to look back on what it is and why it is relevant.
Filecoin is one of the best ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) of 2017. When its ICO ended in September, 1 FIL token was worth $ 5 after raising a total of nearly $ 258 million (including $ 52 million) in the pre-sales round were ). After Gate.io published the early trade with FIL, the price hit USD 160 today.
The team behind the Filecoin project describes what Filecoin is and what its relevance is, simply as “a decentralized storage network in which the most important information of mankind is stored”.
However, this is a loaded statement that describes a highly complex system – if not one of the most complex to date created in the blockchain industry.
These included a detailed, multi-layered test network, the Filecoin implementation teams (Chainsafe and Soramitsu), a large number of miners and storage customers, network partners and ecosystem developers (such as Textile), Open Work Labs, Fleek, Trüffel, Figment, Zondax, Digital Mob ); Calls, classes, Show & Tells, Meetups, Hackatons, a Launchpad Accelerator, a global participant who contributes with his resources to generate secure parameters for the Filecoin network, etc.
The Filecoin team claims that the demand for data storage is increasing sharply. Hence, what it is meant to be and what it could become is a global data store and retrieval marketplace where users can buy and sell unused storage. It could become a decentralized version of the centralized giants that we know and use en masse today. Obviously, they may be seen as competing with those who are considered the authority on web and data storage, such as: B. Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Oracle and IBM.
“Unlike centralized cloud storage services that back up data in a way that clients cannot change or verify, Filecoin allows customers to easily express their own preferences for reliability and cost,” said a recently published document by Protocol Labs, the team behind this storage solution, details the inner workings of Filecoin’s economy.
Airbnb for storage
Among the main benefits, it has been argued that all participants benefit from a so-called “deal” where those with additional storage and processing power make it available to others for a fee, while those who need it get it for a fee. “Network storage demand will affect miners’ storage supply,” the team said.
Additionally, “Filecoin will be a collaborative built economy that will evolve over time” and will eventually include things like repair miners, app miners, and Filecoin loans.
They added that
“Just as Airbnb allows homeowners to compete with hotels, the Filecoin protocol allows any willing and able storage provider to join a storage network and put their storage up for sale, while doing additional tasks such as tools, documentation, and branding on the Filecoin network itself be relocated. “
Instead of just a few units dominating the entire space, maintaining a monopoly over it and controlling the network and everything in it – including all the data, prices, and who is allowed to use the service – billions of users are being prevented from doing so, Filecoin said on its website that the company wants to create a new storage and economic model through “hyper-local” storage.
With this new model, customers can view the available storage worldwide and their market prices before storing data on the Filecoin network. Then they send the data to the selected miner for storage. Miners are incentivized to properly store the data with FIL, storage fees, and the chance for block mining rewards, while the network uses cryptographic evidence to ensure that the data is stored securely. The client can also choose to find the data they want, pay the miner to get the files. As a file grows in popularity, other miners around the world can redeploy it to bring it to many more users.
“From small mining equipment to advanced data centers, everyone benefits from working together and providing a solid new foundation for human information,” the website said.
Preparation for the space race
To test this vision, the Web 3.0 data storage project launched a testnet of incentives called the Space Race with the final prize pool of FIL 1.5 million, and it appears to have been popular. The results currently show 230 PiB (Pebibyte) achieved by 360 miners worldwide, an average success rate of 86% in storage businesses, and an average success rate in retrieval of 98%. The top miner got c. FIL 203.541. “… and 24⁄50 top miners achieved a 100% success rate on their storage agreements,” the team said on the roadmap, highlighting the records that the mining community has achieved.
In the meantime, crypto exchanges have started to announce trading support for the FIL token, such as: B. Gemini, which provides trading and custody support, and Kraken, who announced that trading will begin as soon as the mainnet goes live.
Crypto Exchange OKEx announced that the launch of the Filecoin Mainnet will be marked with a FIL / USDT Perpetual Liquidity Contest with a prize pool of USD 60,000 and the opportunity to enter a lottery to win an iPhone.
According to Lennix Lai, OKEx’s Director of Financial Markets, just two hours after the FIL / USDT Perpetual Swap started in July 2020, more than 5,500 FIL were traded on the exchange with a nominal value of around $ 990,000.
The cryptosphere also appears to be ready for takeoff. ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees and Filecoin investor, for example, describe them as “easily one of the most professional, carefully executed and * most valuable * projects to emerge from the project.” ICO era. “
Muneeb Ali, CEO of Blockstack, is also “excited about the launch of Filecoin” and briefly describes “the Filecoin journey” in his Twitter thread.
8) Filecoin starts tomorrow.
As a friend, peer and investor, I am fixated on the success of Filecoin.
People stopped dreaming big; Juan is not one of those people.
Thanks for the groundbreaking and good luck tomorrow! 🚀
– Muneeb (@muneeb) October 14, 2020
Others seem less focused on the pre-launch excitement and ask questions instead.
Is there a reason not to see Filecoin as the oppressive remnant of the ICO era, which still assumes that it was ever a good idea that goods and services are each paid for in different currencies and that this doesn’t create unnecessary friction project down?
– Eric Wall (@ercwl) October 14, 2020
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Learn more:
Filecoin is entering the crypto trading market with wild swings
Filecoin, IoTeX & IPFS bring decentralized updates for surveillance cameras
(This article was updated on October 16 to clarify that of the $ 258 million Filecoin raised, $ 52 million was raised in the pre-sale round.)
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