What impact will the FileCoin mainnet launch brought by the three major platforms? 丨Baidu Blockchain Introduction 279

At 22:44 on October 15, the Filecoin mainnet was launched at blockchain height 148888. OKEx, Huobi, and Binance successively announced their support for its token Fil, which was launched that evening.

IPFS has gone through 5 years of development from its establishment to its upcoming mainnet launch. Why is the mainnet launch so highly anticipated and what does it mean for the development of blockchain?

What are IPFS and Filecoin, and how do they relate to blockchain?

IPFS, the full name of InterPlanetary File System, is a peer-to-peer distributed file system that uses the following four technical principles.

1. Distributed Hash Table (DHT): A distributed storage solution that uses nodes across the entire network to maintain a huge file index hash table (file hash value and the IP address of the computer storing the file). Since the table contains a lot of content, it is divided into several small blocks, and each node maintains a small block. When you want to find a file, first find the address of the node that stores the file content, and then find the information from the node. In other words, even if you don't need a server, you can find the location where the corresponding file is stored from the DHT.

2. BT protocol (full name BitTorrent): As a file transfer protocol, BT protocol is different from the commonly used HTTP protocol. BT file transfer is point-to-point transmission between independent users. For example, a file is shared by A. In the commonly used HTTP download, B, C, D, E, F, and G all download from A, and A is overwhelmed. However, BT transmission technology allows B to download from A, and after the download, C can download from A and B. Everyone's download speed is getting faster and faster. This is the principle of the commonly used "BT download".

3. Version Control System (Git): Git is the most advanced distributed version control system in the world. It can be used to track, branch, merge and manage code versions. For example, you need to write a document, and this document needs to be sent to different departments in different forms and with slightly changed content. If it involves multiple departments, you may need to write multiple versions and save them all. At this time, Git comes in handy. It can automatically record each file change and allow colleagues to collaborate on editing, which is convenient for tracking and operation.

4. Self-Certifying File System (SFS): IPFS uses SFS self-certification in file naming, so that anyone who publishes a file object on IPFS can have its own verification function, and other users can also confirm whether the file is published by the user, ensuring the accuracy of the source of the message.

From the four major technical principles used, it can be seen that IPFS is mainly a system that optimizes storage, transmission, and file search. IPFS has been used for five years since its release in 2015, but it has nothing to do with blockchain itself, nor is it equivalent to the newly launched FileCoin.

Filecoin is just an incentive layer of IPFS. It solves the problems of IPFS by introducing blockchain and economic model design. The two have a mutually reinforcing relationship.

Since the blockchain itself is not suitable for storing large amounts of data and can only record some simple transaction data, if IPFS and Filecoin can provide a long-term storage method for the blockchain that is low-cost, secure, and highly privacy-protective, it will become an important infrastructure for the blockchain.

What does the launch of the Pigeon King mainnet mean?

Filecoin was originally scheduled to launch its mainnet in 2018, but it was delayed several times. After many twists and turns, it was nicknamed the "pigeon project", but every time it was ready to go online, it became the focus of the industry. What does the mainnet launch mean and what impact might it have?

First of all, many trading platforms such as Binance, OKEx, Huobi, and Coinbase have clearly stated that they will support the project, which will help further promote the rapid growth of IPFS and promote the development and prosperity of the blockchain industry.

Secondly, IPFS begins to merge with the traditional Internet world. It will attract more ordinary users to participate in the blockchain. It will allow more people to experience the advantages of decentralized storage in terms of privacy protection, storage cost, security and stability, which is conducive to the value transfer of data.

Finally, the way users access files is fundamentally changed . All access will be dispersed to different nodes. Hackers actually have no idea which server the file is stored on, and there is no way to attack. If you want to attack a server, you basically have to take down a network, avoiding the shortcomings of HTTP that are easy to be spied on and unstable.

It is understood that all confidential documents taken from the moon in the US Apollo moon landing program were uploaded and saved using IPFS; Firefox, the world's second largest browser, announced support for the IPFS distributed protocol; imToken's encrypted asset wallet has clearly stated that it will connect to IPFS; the US Library of Congress and WikiLeaks also use the IPFS network to store data, etc.

summary

In the data era, storage demand has soared. Filecoin is trying to use blockchain solutions to revolutionize the storage field. As a technology developed around the pain points of blockchain, IPFS may add more possibilities to the implementation of blockchain applications. But even if the main network is launched, it is easier to attack than to defend. It has just started.

Many people think that Filecoin’s launch is the peak. What do you think? Feel free to share your views in the comment section.