Protocol Labs – Building Filecoin & the InterPlanetary File System
Molly Mackinlay is Network Lead at Protocol Labs, an open-source research, development, and deployment laboratory. Protocol Labs projects include IPFS, Filecoin, libp2p, and more. The team aims to make human existence orders of magnitude better through technology.
Cloud infrastructure spending surges
Spending on cloud computing increased by 37 percent in 2019, with organizations around the world splashing out a record $107 billion for cloud infrastructure.
A Cryptocurrency Operated File Storage Network
Filecoin is a distributed electronic currency similar to Bitcoin. Unlike Bitcoinâs computation-only proof-of-work,Filecoinâs proof-of-work function includes a proof-of-retrievability component,which re- quires nodes to prove they store a particular file. The Filecoin network forms an entirely distributed file storage system,whose nodes are incentivized to store as much of the entire networkâs data as they can. The currency is awarded for storing files,and is transferred in transactions,as in Bitcoin. Files are added to the network by spending currency. This produces strong monetary incentives for individuals to join and work for the network. In the course of ordinary operation of the Filecoin network,nodes contribute useful work in the form of storage and distribution of valuable data.
