Filecoin, founded in 2014, is a peer-to-peer, open-source data storage network that uses blockchain technology to store files reliably and verifiably. Anyone needing to store their files or with storage space to spare can join and participate in the network. Consider it cold storage, but instead of being owned by a single entity such as Google or Amazon, it is owned by everyone.
Data storage on Filecoin is entirely private; it is fully encrypted and secured, meaning no one, not even your storage provider, can read it. Additionally, Filecoin users do not need to worry about storage space because the network has a capacity of 2.5 billion gigabytes, 40 times the size of the internet.
Despite being a decentralized storage network, Filecoin employs Proof of Replication (PoRep) and Proof of Spacetime (PoSt) rather than Proof of Stake (PoS). According to PoRep, miners will be compensated with FIL tokens if they can demonstrate that they received the cryptographically encoded data from the client. On the other hand, PoSt ensures that the data is kept for the time period specified in the client's contract.
For storing their files with storage providers, users typically pay with FIL tokens. The price of storage on Filecoin is determined by the network's demand and supply for storage, and anyone can participate. Users are not limited to a small and defined set of storage providers but can store their files with any storage provider offering any deal available on the network. This enables users to store and access their files at extremely low prices.
Filecoin's native cryptocurrency, FIL, serves as a payment medium. Users pay FIL for storage services, and storage providers earn FIL units for staking storage space. The Filecoin blockchain immutably records FIL transactions as well as storage proofs generated by storage providers.
FIL price and tokenomics
Filecoin's ICO was one of the biggest successes in the blockchain industry, raising a total of $205.8 million. With an initial funding goal set at $40 million, its initial token price was pegged at $5 when introduced into the market.
It has a maximum supply of 2 billion tokens with a market capitalization of $1.7 billion. In the fall of 2020, Filecoin organized Space Race to increase the network's data capacity by 400 pebibytes. 400 miners participated in the testnet phase and were collectively awarded 3.5 million FIL tokens.
Filecoin is a deflationary asset with a certain amount of FIL burned with every transaction. The fees burned are sent to an irrevocable burn address to compensate for the network expenditure of resources. The idea is based on Ethereum's EIP1559.
About the founders
Juan Benet co-founded Filecoin in 2014 with the California-based company Protocol Labs, of which he is the CEO.
Benet is a Stanford University graduate with a master's degree in computer science. Before Filecoin, he was the co-founder and CTO of Loki Studios, a mobile gaming studio focused on developing location-aware games. He also founded Athena Academy, a non-profit private school in Palo Alto devoted to educating students with dyslexia.
According to official documents, Filecoin secured $205.8 million during one of the industry's largest funding rounds. The project even received backing from venture capitalists Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz.
Filecoin highlights
First, the popular browser Brave added Filecoin to their wallet, exposing Filecoin to over 56 million Brave users. This integration helped in creating awareness among Brave users about Filecoin.
Second, instead of temporary file storage, Filecoin partnered with Lighthouse to offer their users permanent file storage within the Filecoin ecosystem, coming at a one-time cost. On Filecoin, files are removed if clients stop paying storage fees, so offering permanent file storage is essential for the most important files or irrefutable information, such as NFTs.
Next, the Filecoin Foundation recently donated $10 million worth of Filecoins (50,000 FIL tokens) to the Internet Archive after its founder joined the Filecoin Foundations board of advisors. The donation is aimed at broadening the Internet Archive's reach to help more people across the globe educate themselves.
Finally, Filecoin had a v16 network upgrade, codenamed Skyr, and switched to using the Wasm-based Filecoin Virtual Machine to operate its basic functionality. This upgrade is the first step toward enabling user programmability on Filecoin and is the network's most significant change since its launch almost two years ago.