For some people, Filecoin is not a foreign or new term. But for some, Filecoin may be a new, unheard of term. For those of you who are new to Filecoin for the first time, the following will be reviewed about what Filecoin is.
The biggest question that may arise for some people new to Filecoin is what is Filecoin. If you ask what Filecoin is, it is a cryptocurrency aimed at incentivizing global network computer operators that provide services for sharing file storage.
To further understand what Filecoin is, here are a few things you may need to know. Filecoin is open-source software created by Protocol Labs. Protocol Labs itself is a company that has created advanced technologies, such as Libp2p and IPFS.
These technologies were created to replace the existing internet protocols. For example, IPFS created a system that could replace the hypertext web protocol which stipulates that a web address must start with the http:// prefix.
After knowing some information about what Filecoin is, you also need to know the company that started and developed Filecoin. It is useful to increase your knowledge, not only around what Filecoin is, but also in other details.
As previously mentioned, Filecoin was created by a company called Protocol Labs. Protocol Labs was founded by Juan Benet. While studying computer science at Stanford, Benet is also the founder and game developer called Loki Studios.
The company was acquired by Yahoo in 2013. Juan Benet then took part in the Y Combinator startup accelerator to start Protocol Labs. In its development, Protocol Labs has received funding from well-known investors such as the Digital Currency Group to the Stanford University StartX startup accelerator.
If you’re still confused about what Filecoin is, simply put Filecoin is a bit like Dropbox, but powered by blockchain. Users who wish to store data on the Filecoin network must be able to pay miners to do so.
The amount they have to pay is determined by the open market where miners compete with each other to offer the lowest price. Filecoin has claimed that this market will become quite hypercompetitive. Therefore, it offers a lower price than centralized data storage, such as Amazon Web Services.
Miners, in turn, have an incentive to provide storage. This is because they have enough opportunities to receive rewards from the network in the form of Filecoin tokens. The more storage they offer to the network, the greater their chances of receiving rewards.
However, it should be emphasized that this gift is not free. Miners must perform a series of computationally intensive processes to prove to the network that they are keeping the data they claim to be storing and that they are able to do so reliably over a short period of time.
If they are judged to be able to do it reliably and are able to provide sufficient storage, then they will be able to create new blocks on the Filecoin blockchain and then get network rewards as well as transaction fees from the assessment.
Proof-of-Replication and Proof-of-Spacetime
What is Filecoin with proof of replication and timeframe you will find in this section. Blockchain relies on a mechanism known as proofs to ensure that all network users can approve a new transaction.
For example, the Bitcoin blockchain relies on proof of work, where a miner has to show that he has performed a large number of calculations in order to gain the right to add new transactions to the blockchain and claim the newly minted Bitcoins.
Filecoin uses two proofs to verify whether miners actually keep the claimed data or not, namely proof-of-replication and proof-of-spacetime. These evidences will allow users to believe that the miners are indeed keeping the data they claim to be.
Proof-of-replication indicates that the miner has actually kept the number of copies of the data it claims. Meanwhile, the proof-of-spacetime shows that the miner has kept the data for an agreed period of time.
Filecoin Storage Market
To find out more about what Filecoin is and the Filecoin storage market, you can take a closer look at the reviews in this section. In short, using advanced technology, Filecoin can offer a market for disk storage.
This advanced technology allows users who want to save data to be able to bid for available storage. In general, miners will offer a disk space to store data.
Miners acting as suppliers of disk space will also be judged on their reliability and the price of storage they already offer. The Filecoin storage market is quite similar to the financial market, where users can make offers and requests for offers.
Filecoin Mining
After knowing the information about what Filecoin is, you may be even more interested in this advanced cryptocurrency. Broadly speaking, Filecoin miners are users who can and are able to offer storage.
This indicates that any user can plug in a hard disk, run the Filecoin software and can start offering disk space in the storage market. Miners of this type are usually known as storage miners or storage miners.
Apart from that, there is one more thing that you need to know about what Filecoin is and the category of Filecoin miners. Filecoin miners are categorized into two, namely retrieval miners and services.
Miners will be paid by users to perform data retrieval and perform services aimed at speeding up data transmission, such as participating as a node in a content delivery network.
After knowing some information about what Filecoin is, you may be more and more interested in this cryptocurrency. Another interesting thing that you can also find in Filecoin is events.
In events, you not only get to know what Filecoin is fundamentally, but also get new knowledge about Filecoin from community members. Several events held by Filecoin include Filecoin Virtual Community Meetup, Filecoin Orbit, and Hackathons.
In the Filecoin Virtual Community Meetup, you will not only get information about what Filecoin is, but this meeting also facilitates you to meet the people behind the tools and projects being built within the Filecoin ecosystem.
Meanwhile, the Filecoin Orbit was a major celebratory event that marked the success of the Filecoin mainnet and some foresight for the future of the ecosystem. The Filecoin Orbit 2021 event is held for a virtual week featuring many of the key collaborators involved with the Filecoin and Web3 ecosystem.
Hackathons are events organized by Filecoin to empower developers and entrepreneurs to solve significant problems. This event will of course not only benefit from knowledge about what Filecoin is, but also encourage developers and entrepreneurs to submit innovative applications.
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