In-depth analysis of the relationship between IPFS and Filecoin

The difference between IPFS and Filecoin

• IPFS: A non-blockchain project

The IPFS project mainly solves the problem of data distribution and location, which is similar to the HTTP protocol that has a monopoly in the field of online Internet technology. Unlike the HTTP protocol, HTTP protocol data is transmitted point-to-point, while IPFS data is transmitted to multiple points.

• Filecoin: The blockchain project

Filecoin is a distributed storage protocol based on blockchain, which is used to solve data storage problems and reduce the cost of data storage and use.

technology

The technology used by IPFS is fundamentally different from that of Filecoin.

The IPFS protocol and the Filecoin protocol are a pair of complementary protocols. Filecoin is an incentive layer running on top of IPFS. Applications based on IPFS have huge data storage and node quantity requirements. As a P2P network, the more nodes IPFS has, the faster it can download. Without an incentive mechanism, no one would be willing to contribute so many nodes and storage for free. With economic incentives, Filecoin miners can contribute a huge number of nodes to the IPFS network, which brings a huge distributed storage space to IPFS for use by applications based on IPFS, which also solves the low-cost, high-performance storage problem of the IFPS network.

IPFS and Filecoin are a pair of complementary protocols, so why are they independent? In fact, IPFS and Filecoin have no technical dependencies. IPFS was launched as early as May 2015, and the IPFS system can still run well without Filecoin. Similarly, Filecoin can also run independently without the IPFS system. This is like fighting alone and fighting as a team. When IPFS and Filecoin run alone, their strength is limited. When IPFS and Filecoin run together, things become wonderful. The two protocols are combined to form a more powerful network, which greatly benefits both parties and greatly increases the probability of success of the two systems. Therefore, in the development and selection of actual applications, developers can choose IPFS or Filecoin independently, or they can choose a combination of the two at the same time, which maximizes the flexibility of development for developers.

The Filecoin protocol and the IPFS protocol promote each other. The more IPFS nodes there are, the higher the performance of the IPFS network will be, and more applications will be willing to use it. The more IPFS applications there are, the greater the demand for distributed storage Filecoin. The more data is stored and downloaded by Filecoin, the more miners are willing to invest in resources to gain more benefits. The more resources miners invest, the greater the support they bring to the IPFS network. From this we can see that IPFS and Filecoin have a strong complementary relationship, making progress together, promoting each other, and together providing an excellent solution for the distributed Internet.

The development history of the Filecoin project

Unlike IPFS, Filecoin is very technically difficult. Proof of replication and proof of space-time are both innovative technologies that require basic research, which makes the design and development of Filecoin much more difficult than general blockchain projects. Due to the uncertainty of research, the launch date of the project is not clearly specified in the investment agreement, and only the termination conditions of the Filecoin project are defined in the risk warning.

What does Filecoin include?

Technology develops in a spiral in iterations. It will not appear out of thin air nor disappear without reason. Regarding the content of Filecoin, we can expand it from the following four points.

Like other blockchain projects, this is the foundation of Filecoin, and everything revolves around blocks and chains.

Filecoin has two trading markets, the retrieval market and the storage market. Miners and users reach transactions in these two markets to achieve value exchange.

Transactions and blockchains inevitably require the question of who keeps accounts. The same is true for Filecoin. One of the issues that must be resolved is the consensus mechanism. I would like to praise Filecoin here. Filecoin has abandoned the consensus mechanism formed by the previous blockchain that was highly dependent on computing resources and energy consumption. Filecoin reuses meaningful work to form a consensus mechanism, which is PFT (power fault tolerance), an evolved version of the Byzantine fault tolerance mechanism. The storage capacity currently used by miners in the network and the generated time and space proofs are converted into voting weights. Then the nodes use this weight to elect one or more leader nodes, who create new blocks and propagate them to the network. Filecoin's block data structure uses a DAG structure.

Filecoin uses two basic APIs for users to use: data storage put and data acquisition get. Based on these two operations, Filecoin supports file contracts, allowing users to have more refined control. Filecoin integrates the contract system and the bridge system, providing Filecoin's storage system to other blockchain systems, while allowing Filecoin to use the functions of other blockchains.

Filecoin has developed a bridge tool that can connect different blockchains. This is why so many white papers mention linking with IPFS and blockchain, because Filecoin inherently has this capability.