What are the advantages of IPFS and Filecoin?
This lecture will analyze with you: What are the advantages of IPFS and Filecoin?
In the previous section, we mentioned that decentralized storage technology has many advantages over centralized storage technology in many aspects, and the global storage market has huge potential in the future, so decentralized storage based on blockchain technology The plan came into being.
However, we believe that among these existing competitors, the projects most likely to succeed are IPFS and Filecoin.
Why are IPFS and Filecoin most likely to succeed? There are mainly the following reasons:
1. The technical architecture proposed by the team is advanced
IPFS+Filecoin actually consists of two parts, IPFS and Filecoin. Among them, IPFS is a decentralized storage protocol, and Filecoin is a token incentive protocol in a decentralized storage system.
The full name of IPFS is Interplanetary File System (interplanetary file system), which is a global, peer-to-peer distributed file system.
The IPFS protocol defines how files are stored, indexed, and transmitted in a distributed system. The goal of IPFS is to connect all devices in the network through a file system. In some respects, the original design of IPFS and WEB is very similar, but IPFS is more like a point-to-point file system composed of nodes. It not only has storage functions but also file version management functions.
The IPFS project team even expects that IPFS will replace the HTTP protocol and connect all computing devices together.
Although the IPFS protocol has high hopes, it also has the following two problems:
1) The IPFS protocol only defines the storage and retrieval methods of files, but how to ensure that the files stored in the system by users can be stored safely for a long time?
2) The IPFS system must be able to play its biggest role. On the one hand, it must provide as much storage space as possible, and on the other hand, it must allow as many users as possible to use the IPFS system. Only in this way can the healthy development of the entire ecology be promoted. How can this be done?
In response to the above problems, the traditional centralized storage solution is that the company that provides the storage solution charges a certain fee for daily operation and maintenance to ensure the long-term preservation of files, and continuously purchases new storage systems to meet the growing storage needs of users. .
In the blockchain system, there is no centralized company operating the system, so how to solve these problems? In this regard, the IPFS team proposed the Filecoin system based on the unique token incentive mechanism of the blockchain system.
Filecoin is a layer protocol based on IPFS. Its most important function is to maximize the performance of the IPFS system, provide as much storage space as possible for as many users as possible, and at the same time ensure that the files stored in the system can be used Meet the needs of users.
The storage network formed according to the IPFS protocol is a point-to-point system with no threshold and no access restrictions. In theory, any storage device can be connected to this system as long as it can run the IPFS system. So how to provide as much storage as possible in such a system, and how to attract as many users as possible?
Filecoin's approach is simply a sentence: To those who are willing to provide storage space to this system, reward tokens as a reward, and users need to use tokens as a fee to store files in this system.
For example, if the army wants to fight, it must have good soldiers and strong generals, as well as a good reward and punishment mechanism. IPFS can provide elite soldiers and strong generals, and Filecoin is an effective reward and punishment mechanism. If there are only good soldiers and strong generals without a good reward and punishment mechanism, this army is just a straggler. If there is a good reward and punishment mechanism but no good soldiers and strong generals, it is empty talk to talk about war. Only the combination of the two can forge an invincible army .
Although the relationship between IPFS and Filecoin is so close, the two are independent of each other and can operate independently. In other words, the incentive layer protocol on IPFS does not have to be Filecoin.
A new project that emerged this year, Filenet, is a typical example. Filenet is also an incentive protocol based on IPFS, but its specific mechanism and implementation are different from Filecoin.
In fact, IPFS has been launched a long time ago and has been applied in many blockchain applications, while Filecoin will not be launched on the main network until next year according to the latest plan of the team.
In addition, because IPFS and Filecoin are two different protocols, in addition to the differences in the functions mentioned above, there are also typical differences in technology and content: IPFS is not a blockchain technology, and it has nothing to do with the blockchain itself. ; IPFS has no tokens and cannot be mined. Filecoin is a blockchain project with its own consensus mechanism, miners and tokens.
Compared with other similar projects Siacoin and Storj, Filecoin+IPFS has the following advantages:
Siacoin tends to compete with existing storage solutions in the field of peer-to-peer and enterprise-level applications. IPFS+Filecoin can be applied to the needs of all levels of users, including enterprises and individuals, and its application field is not limited to storage services, and it is very likely to replace the HTTP protocol currently used on the Internet.
Storj is actually a decentralized, pseudo-blockchain distributed cloud storage system. Its main functions are similar to those of centralized Dropbox and Onedrive. It is more like a matching shared storage economy. IPFS+Filecoin adopts a thorough blockchain architecture, which can access various storage systems and devices to the greatest extent and widely, and is stronger than Storj in terms of scalability, flexibility, and attack resistance.
Compared with recent decentralized storage projects such as Filenet and LAMB, IPFS has been practiced and tested in various decentralized applications, and has gradually established its own ecology and reputation. And these new projects have yet to be tested in terms of technology, ecology and reputation.
2. Strong team members
Both protocols, IPFS and Filecoin, were developed by Protocol Labs.
Protocol Labs is a research organization aimed at improving the development and deployment of Internet technologies. Protocol Labs is committed to leading pioneering Internet projects. In addition to IPFS and Filecoin, Protocol Labs has also developed the modular network libp2p technology for peer-to-peer applications and systems.
Protocol Labs was founded by Juan Benet, the founder of IPFS who graduated from Stanford University, and his team. The team members are more like a group of geeks. They use distributed offices and their members are scattered all over the world.
The founder of Protocol Labs, Juan Benet, is an entrepreneurial star in Silicon Valley. The first company he founded was acquired by Yahoo. Later, the IPFS protocol he invented received a huge investment in the incubation competition held by YC, a venture capital institution in Silicon Valley. He led the team to start the ICO financing of the Filecoin project in 2017.
3. The team's all-star investors
Under the leadership of Juan Benet, Protocol Labs has overcome obstacles in the field of decentralized storage and achieved fruitful results. In 2017, it opened the ICO and subsequent financing of the Filecoin project.
Filecoin's investors can be described as a luxurious lineup, almost including heavyweight investment institutions and investors.
So who are these investors? Typical are the following:
The first is Y Combinator (YC for short). YC incubator is well-known in Silicon Valley. Lu Qi, the former president of Baidu, joined YC after leaving Baidu. YC has funded more than 1,900 startups with a combined valuation of more than $10 billion.
The second is Sequoia Capital, one of the largest venture capital firms in the world. Sequoia Capital was established in Silicon Valley of the United States in 1972. It has localized funds in the United States, China and India, and is one of the largest venture capital firms in the world. Its well-known investment cases include Apple, Cisco, Oracle, Google, Yahoo, Alibaba, Meituan, Didi, Mobike, etc. Sequoia Capital invested $50 million in the Filecoin project.
The third is DCG Group (Digital Currency Group). This is a financial giant founded in 2015, focusing on blockchain and digital currency investment. DCG provides funds and necessary technical support to blockchain startups, and also provides various financial professional services to financial institutions, enterprises and startups. DCG has the world's largest portfolio of early stage digital currencies and blockchain ecosystems. Currently, more than 70 start-ups in 20 countries have received its support.
The fourth is the Cleves Brothers Fund. The two brothers first sued Facebook for stealing their ideas, and received nearly $65 million in compensation from Facebook in 2008. With this capital, they started to enter the blockchain field, and established an online trading platform and their own venture capital fund.
The two brothers bought a large amount of Bitcoin when it was $120. According to conservative estimates, the two hold nearly 100,000 Bitcoins, with a total valuation of more than $1 billion.
The fifth is the University Fund of Stanford University. Stanford University is one of the top universities in the United States and is recognized as one of the top universities in the world. Being able to get the fund investment from Stanford University shows the excellence of the project.
The sixth is the Andreessen Horowitz Foundation. This fund is a well-known venture capital firm located in Silicon Valley, which mainly invests in companies in the seed stage and growth stage. Famous cases of this fund's investment include Facebookt, Twitter and so on.
The seventh is Union Square Ventures. The company manages $1 billion in assets so far and is a well-known investment institution located in New York.
4. The project has been widely applied
If the first three points are not enough to directly prove the strength of the project, then the landing application is the key point that can most directly prove the strength of the project.
IPFS has been practiced and tested in many applications. Among them are the decentralized store OpenBazaar, the Brave browser, the decentralized real-time collaborative editor PeerPad, the decentralized video platform DTube, and the decentralized social network Akasha.
Not only is IPFS popular in terms of applications, but the IPFS team is also actively deploying in cooperation with major public chains. The IPFS project team currently has close cooperation and contact with Ethereum, and it is very likely that Ethereum smart contracts will be used for management and operation in the IPFS+Filecoin system in the future.
At present, many DAPP development teams based on Ethereum and EOS default to IPFS as the storage solution for the project. There are so many open source codes and open source projects on the Internet about how to write DAPP to operate IPFS.
Therefore, after these years of development, IPFS has gradually formed its own ecology, and this accumulation will be a strong barrier to latecomers and competitors in the same period.
It is precisely because IPFS+Filecoin has unique advantages in these four aspects, we are most optimistic about it among the existing decentralized storage solutions.
So since IPFS+Filecoin has the best advantage, how do miners participate in mining in this system? I will continue to share with you in the next section.
