Original source:Filecoin Network
2023 Impact Overview
As we wave goodbye to 2023, we should seriously think about the transformation process that the Filecoin ecosystem has experienced. In this year full of global changes and challenges, the Filecoin community has persevered and worked together towards our common goal: to build the largest decentralized storage network, load and protect human data, and bring computing to data to realize the network scale applications. Here are five important milestones Filecoin achieved in 2023 that will not only set the stage for the year ahead, but also pave the way for a decentralized future. Read below to also learn about the main technical and development achievements of the Filecoin ecosystem in 2023.
Five breakthroughs in 2023
1. Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) released:In March 2023, FVM launchedFilecoin MasterplanThe third step in the process allows the Filecoin network to support smart contracts and user programmability. As of December 2023, more than 200 projects are being built on FVM, with more than 635,000 wallets created and more than 2,400 independent contracts deployed, further solidifying Filecoin’s status as a Layer-1 blockchain and providing The open data economy brings unique advantages. Since FVM’s launch, its total value locked (TVL) has soared to an incredible $280 million (data as of December 31, 2023), with a monthly growth rate of 46%. In a very short period of time, Filecoin has solidified its position among the top 25 blockchains, as evidenced by total value locked.
2. Storage growth:Another major goal of the Filecoin network is to load and protect human data. To achieve this goal, the total amount of user data loaded has quadrupled since January 2023 and grown 19 times in the past 18 months, with a total of 2 million terabytes of user data stored on the Filecoin network. Behind this data, there are more than 1850 users, includingUC Berkeley, USC Shoah Foundation, Solana, and research, higher education, non-profit and web3 organizations such as CERN. Given the progress made now, Filecoin client adoption in 2024 is ready to cross the chasm into mainstream markets, including enterprise, SaaS, and AI clients.
3. Filecoin retrieval and data availability:To improve the retrieval of Filecoin data,Boost、Lassieas well asStationand other projects launching in 2023, with the common goal of streamlining the search process. Powered by better tools and Filecoin data retrieval visibility, the community can now monitor the success and speed of retrievals. Since its inception, Boost has become the main storage node of Filecoin Storage Provider (SP), which is an important milestone in the development of Filecoin storage infrastructure. Additionally, Project SPARK introduces a professional storage provider retriever that is seamlessly integrated with Filecoin Station, demonstrating another dimension of innovation.
4. Filecoin becomes the L1 of computing networks:In 2023, Filecoin will become the basic L1 platform of the computing network, enabling large-scale computing through its powerful data infrastructure. This innovation enables various L2 computing networks to seamlessly integrate and optimize various properties, providing a simplified path for web2 applications to transition to web3. The integration is particularly beneficial for applications that require heavy data processing and marks a major leap for the web2 giant to embrace the decentralized prospects of web3. Currently, a vibrant community of more than a dozen teams is developing innovative solutions for computing networks within the Computing on Data (CoD) working group.
5. Scalability of Interstellar Consensus (IPC):With the help ofIPC, decentralized applications can reach global scale through recursively scalable subnetworks, sub-second transactions, powerful computing workloads, and a WebAssembly runtime that is highly adaptable to developer needs. Combined with FVM, these projects will realize the Filecoin and web3 scalability vision, allowing web-scale applications to bring their data and interactions on-chain through recursion, zone sharding scalability and rapid upgradeability.
In our 2023 Year-End Review, we explore the milestones, challenges, and triumphs that defined Filecoin’s progress in 2023, and look ahead to the future of decentralization. But first, we would like to sincerely thank the outstanding community and developers. It is you who have promoted Filecoin’s continued growth. Your hard work and investment in the Filecoin ecosystem and its continued growth are the cornerstone of our success. Thank you to each of you for your valuable contributions and for being the backbone of Filecoin’s journey in 2023!
2023: Unleashing the potential of the open data economy
Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM)
Dawn of Era:At 3:14 pm UTC on March 14, 2023 (block height 2, 683, 348),Filecoin virtual machine(FVM) on Filecoin mainnetstart up, enabling on-chain programmability and smart contracts on Filecoin for the first time. This transformative milestone brings the promise of an open data economy, with decentralized applications (dApps) able to use storage primitives in Filecoin for the first time to unlock valuable workflows, including persistent storage, data access control, data computation wait!
Driving DeFi growth:FVM has driven the rapid development of the Filecoin DeFi ecosystem, with third parties establishing staking and lending protocols on top of approximately 140 million FIL collateral from storage providers.
Since mainnet launch in March, total locked value has reached approximately $280 million by the end of 2023!
dApps built on FVM help Filecoin token holders connect with storage providers to provide capacity and data to the network. In just three months since its launch, FVM has launched 10pledge pool, there have been 20.9 million FIL deposits and 18.3 million FIL loans so far (for real-time statistics, pleaseCheck it out here）。
Expand horizons with premium use cases, applications and collaborations:Throughout 2023, FVM continues to improve features, integrations, and resources to create conditions for incubating various projects on Filecoin.
FVM enables many use cases and applications. include:
1. Permanent storage contract (Lighthouse、NFT.storage）
2. Web3 CDN from Filecoin SaturnRetrieve reward contract
3. Computational and generative artificial intelligence L2 (for example, Waterlily’s stable diffusion computing contract can generate and mint new NFTs based on user prompts)
4.Programmable storageEnables the option to upload, retrieve, and manage Filecoin storage transactions automatically or with user-defined conditions (via Lighthouse on mainnetProgrammable storage contract）
Supports dApp development, prominent third-party integrations such as oracle (Tellor）、dex （Uniswap、Sushiswap), cross-chain bridge (Axelar /Squid Router、Celer), subgraph service (TheGraph) and wallet service (Brave、Metamask, Coinbase f 410 withdrawal support) has been successfully integrated into FVM.
passFVM block explorerand wrap token(wFIL、celerFIL, axlFIL) adds important tools.
Empower and promote builder growth:More quality use cases and applications are emerging thanks to everyone building on FVM, with the number of unique projects and teams growing 25% every month, from Data to DeFi toInfraThere are more and more use cases. Since its launch, the number of builders on the Filecoin network has grown at an incredible rate!
The journey begins with a team of more than 60Early Builders Team, they were invited to work with the FVM core development team to test and iterate prior to release.
At launch, early developers released over 30 projects to mainnet, with 20 joiningGraph Paper Capital、 LonghashWaiting for leading accelerator.
FVM holds an important place in the broader development community. FVM participated in 17 hackathons with ETHGlobal, ETHDenver, Encode, DevFolio, and Huddle 01, receiving over 500 project submissions.
FVM hosts Filecoin’s largest event to datehackathon(Check out the interesting ones here@fvmdev), and hosted full tracks at the Fil Developer Summit in Singapore and Iceland, collecting feedback from developers, discovering problems and cracking them together, (check out dApp heredevelopandprogrammatic storagerelated discussions).
More than 4,000 contracts have been deployed, more than 200 teams have been established on FVM, and approximately 640,000 users have created wallets!
Platform functionality continues to evolve:The FVM core development team has been hard at work unlocking new platform features and doing a lot of groundwork to further improve FVM security! Some of the highlights include:
Track APIs in Lotus and unlock new partners
Deterministic state access (critical for user-deployed WASM actors)
Precise gas charging via improved Event Syscall API (also critical for user-deployed WASM actors)
IPLD accessibility analysis, which is critical for security as it ensures that a participant who owns this state can access it
Improverandomness syscall, making the others independent of the user side for hashing
Resource managementExecution performance has been improved
Configure self-destruct function for EVM, use moreSafety
Additionally, without the users knowledge (hopefully), core parts of the FVM implementation were refactored to make it easier to maintain and evolve.
Looking to the future:As FVM moves into the future, its roadmap is filled with exciting opportunities. One of the key points is getting FVM ready for a wider range of new use cases.
Pluggable syscallsSupport custom functional requirements. Currently, FVM is working onFendermint、IPC(Interstellar Consensus) provides motivation. This means that new networks (subnets in IPC) optimized for different use cases can use FVM. Pluggable syscalls extend the current set of FVM system calls without having to fork FVM itself.
User deploys WASM actor (in compiled or interpreted form), which will unlock exciting innovations. Such as:
1. User deployment runtime
2. Further enhance programmability
3. New protocol functions
4.Storage statusintegrated
These developments not only expand the capabilities of FVM but also open up entirely new areas of creativity and technological advancement within the Filecoin ecosystem.
DeFi
The launch of FVM marks a pivotal moment that has given rise to the boom in decentralized finance (DeFi) on the Filecoin network. The birth of Filecoin DeFi has proven to be a game changer, introducing innovative ways to connect storage providers with opportunities to leverage FIL as collateral, driving seamless access to Filecoin network capacity and storage. In just 9 months, the Filecoin network has accumulated over 20 million FIL tokens, which are strategically deposited across 10 different Filecoin DeFi services.
The Filecoin DeFi ecosystem, including prominent platforms such as Glif, stFIL, SFT Protocol, HashKing, FilFi, Filet Finance, MineFi, HashMix, mFIL DAO, and CollectifDAO, has gained significant traction. The Filecoin network’s total value locked (TVL) surged to over $280 million. Under this rapid upward momentum, Filecoin has ranked 25th in DeFi Llama’s famous TVL top chain rankings. Participation in the Filecoin DeFi ecosystem is very high, with approximately 6,000 savers and nearly 800 storage provider systems actively participating in lending activities as of December 2023. In particular, Sushiswap announced on FVM in Novemberonline, further enhancing the vitality of the Filecoin DeFi space; Uniswap community approved on FVMIntegrated v3, its front-end interface will be launched in early 2024, indicating a promising future.
New opportunities for Filecoin scalability
Data calculation
Over the past year, a new paradigm in decentralized computing—data network computing—has received increasing attention. There are many different approaches to the Filecoin ecosystem, including Fission, Tau, Koii, and more. Open source platform incubated in Protocol LabsBacalhauIt can help builders co-locate storage and computing in decentralized infrastructure, solving key limitations of existing decentralized computing problems.
Launched in 2022, the Bacalhau open source community is making great strides towards production readiness. Core optimizations improve performance for parallel workloads, with benchmarks showing greater efficiency than centralized clouds. Modular architecture extends language support from Docker to Python, JavaScript, and more.
In 2023, the platform continued to advance the decentralized computing architecture and released version 1.0 at the 3rd Data Computing Conference in May. In addition, developments in GPU usage, distributed job execution, and distributed consensus have all become part of the core platform. At Lab Week in Istanbul, a proof-of-concept for the Lilypad network was launched and executed over 1,000 times, quickly placing it among the top five decentralized networks in the world.
Partner programs also integrate Bacalhau into real-world applications:
LabDAO is using Bacalhau as a decentralized network for lab management and local decentralized execution.
Heata uses Bacalhau in its distributed “green cloud” platform across residential computing units, demonstrating how decentralized infrastructure can achieve sustainability goals.
Radix is integrating its platform with Bacalhau to provide native execution on complex DAG pipelines.
The developer experience is also improved through documentation improvements, tutorials, and discussion forums, creating an active community.
Moving into 2024, convergence around frameworks like Bacalhau will drive networking stacks purpose-built for machine learning, media rendering, industrial edge intelligence, and other areas. These technologies hold the promise of connecting fragmented capacity while preserving privacy and user control. If the current development momentum can be maintained, data computing infrastructure may fundamentally reshape the landscape of cloud computing and web3 in the next decade. We welcome all builders who uphold the vision of decentralized computing for the people and by the people, and let us work together towards a better shared future!
Interstellar Consensus (IPC)
interstellar consensus(IPC) is a revolutionary scalable technology that delivers planet-class performance for web3 applications. It provides developers with a frictionless experience, powering a new generation of applications that break the limitations of web2. IPC supports planet-scale decentralized applications with recursively scalable subnets, sub-second transactions, computational workloads, and a highly customizable runtime to meet the needs of any developer. This starts with empowering developers on the Filecoin network.
IPC aims to become the basic technology stack for multi-chain, planet-scale web3 networks, enabling a range of decentralized applications that were previously impossible, from artificial intelligence and data science to gaming and social media. Our goal is to bridge the gap between web2 performance and web3 decentralization concepts, driving IPC to become the solution of choice for large-scale decentralized applications.
Key milestones and progress
Over the past year, IPC has grown fromConsensusLabA research project under the project developed into an engineering project that is about to be put into production.
With the launch of Spacenet, we reached milestone M 1 (deployment of IPC to Spacenet) in April. Spacenet is an IPC-based test network where users can experiment with their stacks! M 1 enables developers to use Spacenet to test applications with custom needs or high transaction volumes.
In July, M 2 (a functional demonstrator on the Filecoin mainnet) followed M 1 and marked our move to Solidity actors, enabling anchoring to the EVM parent network and cross-network messaging.
Early user and community involvement
We are in Singapore FILDeveloper SummitandIceland FIL Developer SummitThere are IPC symposiums all over the place, but this year’s flagship event is our Interstellar Consensus event at LabWeek 23Breakthrough expansion！
During LabWeek 23, we launched the new Fendermint stack and are currently moving it into production, as well asMycelium Calibration Testnet。
Partners and early adopters actively participate in activities includingFluence、 Lilypad、 Protofire、TablelandandTitan。
At LabWeek and Devconnect, the founders of web3 were delighted to be able to further use Filecoin through IPC to enable faster transactions, data calculations and regional subnets.
Looking to the future
The IPC team joined forces with FVM in the fourth quarter, adding more resources in engineering, products, development experience (DX) and business development (BD), expanding the world-class talent team, and preparing for full mass production deployment in 2024 prepare for. Additionally, as part of an important evolution of the brand, IPC is transitioning to a new identity that reflects its broader mission in the web3 space. Stay tuned for our new branding in 2024!
While the roadmap is dynamic, we currently plan to deploy a cutting-edge Mycelium mainnet by the end of Q1, followed by progressive releases of more feature-rich versions and towards general availability later this year.
You can use the new ipc.spaceFollow our roadmap and updates on the website or joinDiscord server! But action is worse than a heartbeat, so you might as well go to ourDocumentation websiteAnd start using IPC!
Filecoin Ecological Development
User application
In 2023, in order to expand the coverage of the Filecoin network and strengthen the web2 audiences understanding of decentralized storage and Filecoin, Filecoin took a series of strategic measures.DeStorThe launch of has played a key role in raising awareness of decentralized storage. Through organic traffic, these efforts resulted in 110 PiB of storage lanes, demonstrating growing interest and adoption of Filecoin within and beyond the web3 community.
Additionally, to increase visibility of user data stored on the Filecoin network, we are launching FilecoinUser Explorer. The total number of users in the Filecoin ecosystem has reached 1806 and continues to grow. especiallySETI InstituteandVictor Chang Heart InstituteThese are all testament to the growing influence and adoption of the Filecoin network in web2.
Data loading
In a dynamic environment loaded with data, the Filecoin network has experienced significant growth and progress over the past 18 months. The platform has successfully added 1.5 EiB of data, facilitated 45 million transactions and included 90 million NFTs. By introducing a comprehensive solution that simplifies users’ Filecoin data loading processSingularity, our strategic focus on tool improvement is clearly visible. This end-to-end tool covers workflows such as dataset integration, data preparation, CAR distribution, deal production, and deal tracking, and has successfully processed 150 PiB of data to date. Notably, Singularity’s data preparation module has been widely adopted, with more than 100 data loading companies such as Solana processing more than 20 PiB of raw data through it.
SpadeOur commitment to advancing data loading is further demonstrated by the introduction of a platform designed to connect storage users and storage providers to facilitate high-throughput and low-friction data loading. Spade launched as pilot/v 0 in 2023 and currently has 4 PiB of on-chain data loaded. at the same time,Filecoin Plus（Fil+）It is also critical in adding a layer of social trust to incentivize the storage of real data. The platform has received numerous improvements, including optimizing DataCap flows in the Fil+ ecosystem, making Fil+ registrations 10x faster, and introducing tools like quality.datacapstats.io. Other updates include the launch of V1 Filplus user dashboard, quality dashboard, CID inspection bot, retrieval bot and dispute tracker. A comprehensive platform as a central hubFILplus.storagehas also been launched to provide users with information about Fil+ and facilitate the DataCap application process. Additionally, the Data Loading team has improved the storage provider experience through significant packaging cost optimization and a strategic partnership with Servers.com. The partnership tailors pre-defined hardware specifications for Filecoin storage solutions, reducing storage providers’ time to market from 6-12 months to an impressive 6-8 weeks. These initiatives demonstrate the communitys commitment to enhancing the data loading process and building a strong ecosystem for users and storage providers.
Developer application and loading platform
The development of developer applications and loading platforms is crucial to the formation of the Filecoin ecosystem, especiallyNFT.Storageandweb3.storage. NFT.Storage has become a foundational solution for ensuring the permanent availability of NFTs, a good example of which is the NFT Forever project, a groundbreaking initiative that guarantees permanent storage of NFT data off-chain. Today, NFT.Storage has become the first choice for NFT creators and minting platforms looking for reliable decentralized storage solutions, with 151,000 users uploading data, 32 million uploads, and 447 TB of data stored.
Going forward, NFT.Storage will transition to full decentralization, eventually transitioning to the NFT.Storage DAO in early 2024. The platform is actively developing its next iteration to enhance decentralization and off-chain NFT data management through smart contracts on the Filecoin virtual machine. This forward-looking approach demonstrates the Filecoin community’s commitment to staying at the forefront of technological advancement in the NFT space.
At the same time, web3.storage has become a developer-centric storage platform that provides one of the easiest ways to access data on the decentralized web. Over the past year, more than 70 million files have entered web3.storage. The platform’s new upload client and API launched this year seamlessly handle large upload needs with features such as streaming CAR generation and uploads. Additionally, UCANs (updatable, capability-based access controls) enable local-first, delegated, and distributed identities, making them the first choice for some large projects in the web3 space.
To learn more about web3.storage’s innovative features, you can browse the platform’sdocumentandblog post. The above-mentioned progress in developer adoption and onboarding of the platform demonstrates the Filecoin community’s commitment to providing user-friendly, efficient, and decentralized solutions that meet the evolving needs of the developer community.
Filecoin retrieval
Retrieval reliability and availability
Retrieval client for Filecoin and IPFSLassieLaunching in 2023, Lassie makes it easy to get data from the Filecoin and IPFS networks, it will find and get content through the best retrieval protocols available. For end users and clients, this means that the Lassie client can be used to easily retrieve content-addressed data (using CIDs) from Filecoin or IPFS without having to run your own IPFS node or Filecoin node.
Boost postedVersion 2.0, allowing Filecoin storage providers to scale out retrieval.
Indexer Scaling - The IPNI team accomplished the primary goal of scaling the indexer to handle over 40 B of CID ingestion per week, IPFS traffic, large IPFS clusters such as web3.storage, while maintaining SLA uptime and reliability. In addition, the team has launched a new privacy policy for readersdouble hash index。
Destor REST APIBeta version launched. Filecoin’s DeStor REST API (DRA) is open source software that provides a simple API for storing data to and retrieving data from Filecoin. It integrates seamlessly with the S 3 connector, so those who wish to expose the Filecoin storage layer to users can do so using the familiar S 3 API.
Saturn
SaturnIt is a decentralized content distribution network that provides powerful servers with extremely high bandwidth to accelerate retrieval from IPFS and Filecoin. At the beginning of 2023, Saturn only had a few hundred nodes. Today, Saturn has over 3,000 nodes on the network, all run by the community. Its global performance is also worth mentioning, with Saturn improving TTFB to below 70 ms and even down to 60 ms with further intelligent client routing, making Saturn the fastest content-addressable data dCDN in the world. On its busiest day last year, Saturn processed 400 million requests in a single day, proving that it was ready for the large-scale application of Web3. In 2023, Saturn launches more networking tools, such as a completely revamped node offeringProgram DashboardandExplorer. Additionally, Saturn can now fetch content from Filecoin and any public IPFS node.
To round out an exciting 2023, Saturn has launched a private user beta on a new portal. If you want to become a Saturn user, we sincerely invite you to join the exclusive invitation systemInternal beta plan。
Station
Stationis a DePIN deployment target for network builders, offering a variety of different nodes distributed around the world, from large servers to small desktop computers and even Raspberry Pis. The first network or “module” to run on Station is Spark, first launched in July 2023.
Sparkis a trustless protocol for sample retrieval from Filecoin storage providers. Spark is designed to improve the success rate of Filecoin retrievals by executing these random samples. If the storage provider does not know which CID it will be asked to serve, it must save all CIDs in hot storage for fast retrieval.
Spark is the first module that allows Station operators to get paid for running Station. The Station team launched Spark with FIL paid functionality in November 2023, and the number of active Stations grew rapidly, from 50 to 5,000 per day, a 100-fold increase.
Engineering and network upgrades
Filecoin implementation and upgrades
In 2023, Filecoin implemented a transformative network upgrade, successfully releasing a total of 15 Filecoin Improvement Proposals (FIPs) as well as a large number of user-side improvements. Each upgrade is an important milestone leading us towards a stronger Filecoin network and a more useful and scalable implementation. Here’s a closer look at these key developments that not only shaped the past year but will continue to influence the trajectory of the web in the years to come.
Network upgrade 18 -Hygge
On Pi Day, March 14, 2023, the Filecoin network celebrated a major milestone with the Hygge upgrade. This upgrade brings the Ethereum-compatible Filecoin Virtual Machine (FEVM) to mainnet, unlocking the potential of smart contracts and user programmability in the network. This transformative move not only enhances the capabilities of the Filecoin network but also sets the stage for a new era of innovation and growth in the open data economy. In homage to the mathematical constant, the day was indeed filled with pi.
Network upgrade 1920 -Lightning and Thunder
Just as thunderstorms tend to arrive earlier than expected, so do Lightning and Thunder network upgrades. Over the year, the amount of data on the network has continued to rise, prompting us to accelerate the release of network upgrades 19 and 20 . These network upgrades were implemented faster than expected, relieving the network of heavy cron execution costs while significantly reducing block verification times.
By reducing execution costs and verification times, we have pushed the network to be able to handle larger volumes of data and transactions, which is a critical step in ensuring that the network can continue to grow and serve an increasing number of users.
Lightning and Thunder network upgrades also enhance network security by introducing new windowPoSt proofs that generate challenges independent of sector instructions.
Network upgrade 21 -Watermelon
The last network upgrade of 2023, codenamed Watermelon, was implemented on December 12. Watermelon is often associated with summer, and there is always a place on earth with a summer climate. In this sweet and juicy upgrade, several key improvements are introduced.
After the upgrade, storage providers can pledge and rollover sectors for up to 3.5 years over a total sector life of five years, a change that also enables users to conduct transactions for up to 3.5 years. Additionally, this upgrade brings the ability for SPs and Encapsulation-as-a-Service providers to leverage synthetic proofs of replication, reducing disk usage for storing temporary data while encapsulating. This not only reduces costs but also increases packaging throughput, making the process more efficient and cost-effective.
In addition, this network upgrade also optimizes and reduces the gas usage when the trading department connects to the network.
Lotus
In addition to leading the implementation of 15 Filecoin Improvement Proposals (FIPs) with teams and partners such as Fil-Proofs, the FVM team, and others, the Lotus client is undergoing significant improvements throughout 2023. These improvements improve performance and reliability for network users and cover areas such as infrastructure expansion and user experience. Here are some key improvements:
Production-ready SplitStore:At the beginning of the year, SplitStore went through several sprints to start writing production-ready code. This function can automatically discard old chain data, thereby reducing disk usage and reducing maintenance work for operators who do not need historical data nodes.
New client features:Over the past year, the Lotus client has built features to support new network improvements through network upgrades, including FEVM client functionality, actor events, ETH APIs, and the default grafana dashboard and scalable Lotus chain infrastructure. User side improvements.
Smoother network migration:Significant effort has been invested in simplifying complex network migrations, with a focus on reducing pre-migration and migration time. This was clearly demonstrated during Network Upgrade 21, a particularly heavy migration. The effort was successful and the network transitioned smoothly to the new version.
Check tool:Over the course of the year, changes in the capabilities of network status and client analysis inspection tools were evident, with Lotus now having the ability to monitor network status growth over time and detect potential red flags early to prevent unexpected degradation in network performance. View Filecoin status usage hereSummaryor Lotus message executionanalysis reportexample.
Sync improvements:The Filecoin network has continued to evolve over the past year, and we are seeing new load types and higher capacities emerging on the network. We continue to address these challenges by fixing bugs and enhancing stability to ensure users have a seamless sync experience.
Cyber Security Tools:The Lotus Slasher and Lotus Disputer tools were introduced to maintain the integrity of the network. These tools proactively identify and report consensus errors, verify off-chain WindowPoST proofs, and block malicious activity in the network while remaining efficient and lightweight for ease of operation. In Q4, the network observed 25 unique slashers and 14 unique disputers, demonstrating their active engagement in maintaining network security.
Lotus SP stack
Guided by valuable feedback from storage providers, the 2023 SP Stack Roadmap focuses on the pain points and most popular features that have the greatest overall impact on storage providers. We launched this roadmap in Q1 and continued throughout the year. Now, lets take a look at some of the key improvements throughout the year:
Running instability bug fix sprint:There are several development sprints dedicated to resolving and fixing major bugs that cause the storage provider to run erratically. These targeted efforts significantly reduce the time storage providers spend debugging and resolving general issues.
Enhanced unblocking function:Significantly improves the storage providers unblocking process, eliminating the need to manually place workers into storage locations for encapsulated sectors. This is thanks to the Proofs team building a new proof API that improves efficiency and reliability in handling large numbers of unsealed encapsulated sectors.
Supranational PC 2/C 2 ：Worked with Proofs team to implement Supranationals highly optimized brownfield PC 2/C 2 package proof in Lotus SP stack. The packaging time of PC 2/C 2 tasks is greatly reduced (about 70% more), energy consumption is reduced, and the operating costs of storage providers are reduced.
Implement SyntheticPoReps:Worked with Proofs team to implement SyntheticPoReps in Lotus SP stack. Significantly reduces temporary data storage during encapsulation, improves encapsulation throughput, and enables batching of larger PreCommit messages, saving gas for storage providers.
High availability (HA) V2 technology design:Based on community feedback, we developed the V2 technical design to provide a high availability solution for WindowPoSt/WinningPoSt. This design led to the development of Lotus-Provider, now in alpha state and often referred to as Lotus-Miner-V2.
Lotus-Provider：Currently in alpha state, the Lotus-Provider binaries aim to replace the need to run lotus-miner and lotus-worker in 2024. It includes many of the features needed for small, medium and large deployments and addresses architectural challenges reported by users. This is a single binary that can be easily distributed across a server farm and perform the tasks you want to do by launching the binary with a tag to find the database and the configuration layer it should use. In alpha version, it supports high availability of WindowPoSt and WinningPoSt, and features such as multi-MinerID support, encapsulation, and clustered webUI are under active development.
Venus
The Venus team achieved a major milestone in 2023, increasing its representation in the Filecoin network from approximately 5% to 15% of QAP. This development trajectory is expected to reach 20% in the short term, which will have a significant impact on user diversity and enhanced network security. Here are some of the features and improvements the team has crafted throughout the year, which together contribute to a stronger and more engaging Filecoin community.
VenusSP stack rebranding:To facilitate a seamless transition for storage providers (SPs) to the VenusSP stack, the team has renamed critical chain service components as a strategic move. It is worth noting thatSophonNow represents chain services,DamoclesReplaced venus-cluster,DropletReplaced venus-market. This modularity not only simplifies the onboarding experience, but also facilitates community engagement for SPs of different sizes.
Production Hardening Nodes as a Service (NaaS):Throughout 2023, the team is working to enhance Node-as-a-Service (NaaS) powered by Sophon. The service supports high-availability deployments of Lotus and Venus nodes, with performance improvements and bug fixes. With the improvement of the third-party consumer authentication system, NaaS can not only help SPs significantly reduce operating costs (OPex), but is also the cornerstone of much important Filecoin infrastructure.
Supranational proves integration:The VenusSP stack integrates Supranational proofs into production storage systems, an innovation that allows SP to experience significant speed improvements in computational proofs of P2, C2, snapdeal, and windowPost. Damocles’ innovative architecture facilitates lightning-fast attestation integration, giving numerous VenusSPs a competitive advantage in their storage provisioning operations.
Damocles refactoring:Damocles has been completely refactored based on constructive feedback and close cooperation with Venus SP, refining and improving components such as the external processor, configuration manager, windowPost execution and Lotus compatibility manager. This work brings an excellent user experience to SP and effectively reduces the operational overhead of managing Filecoin network storage capabilities.
Droplet retrieval improvements:To improve data retrieval capabilities, Droplet introduces various enhancements, including but not limited to HTTP retrieval support, unblocking refactoring, metrics and visualization tools, and storage transaction batching. These improvements not only provide customers with a best-in-class retrieval experience, but also help minimize SPs operating expenses and overhead.
For details on these achievements, see the Venus teamwebsiteComprehensive documentation on.
Forest
Depend onChainSafe SystemsThe developed Forest represents a Rust implementation of the Filecoin network, providing a more lightweight alternative to Go-based nodes, reducing memory requirements and enabling seamless operation. In 2024, Forest will be the exclusive provider of the latest snapshot of the Filecoin community. Notably, ChainSafe Systems currently hosts the complete Filecoin archive data generated by Forest, providing a valuable resource to the broader Filecoin ecosystem. These archival data are free to download and help enhance data accessibility within the community.
Looking to the future, Forest’s strategic roadmap includes establishing a decentralized network of launch nodes located everywhere. These nodes will facilitate the integration of new Filecoin nodes into the network, demonstrating Forest’s commitment to promoting a strong and accessible Filecoin ecosystem. The Forest team is working hard to deploy Remote Procedure Call (RPC) nodes to further enhance community participation and interaction within the Filecoin network. We look forward to more updates and developments as Forest continues to grow.
For more insights and details, explore the following ChainSafe resources:
About the launch of archive data servicesblog post
About the launchLatest snapshot service1
Filecoin profile dataDownload link
Summarize
As we turn the page on the extraordinary year 2023, it is clear that the Filecoin ecosystem is at a critical moment in its development. The year was more than just technological breakthroughs and impressive metrics, it also highlighted the collective spirit and relentless innovation of a community dedicated to shaping the future of decentralization. From the landmark launch of FVM to the expansion of the Filecoin network’s storage and retrieval capabilities, each milestone reflects a deeper commitment to creating a powerful and open data economy. The growth in developer and user adoption, coupled with advances in DeFi, scalability, and data computing, all point to a thriving ecosystem that is not only keeping pace with the evolving web3 landscape, but actively driving it forward.
The journey ahead is both exciting and challenging. In the new year and beyond, the Filecoin ecosystem will strive to break new ground by enhancing platform functionality, expanding new use cases, and deepening community participation. As we move forward into the future, let us celebrate the collective efforts and shared vision that have brought us here. We sincerely thank every developer, user, partner, and supporter who has participated in this journey. Your enthusiasm and commitment are the driving force that drives Filecoin forward. I hope we will achieve breakthrough innovation in the new year, promote the prosperity and development of the community, and continue to empower decentralization.
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