Juan Benet emphasized that Filecoin aims to reward long-term value, not short-term speculation.
Speech: Founder of IPFS and Filecoin
On October 27th, at the 6th Blockchain Global Summit hosted by Wanxiang Blockchain Lab, Juan Benet, the founder of Protocol Lab, shared the recent development and application prospects of Filecoin network.
The following is the full text of the speech:
Hello, my name is Juan Benet. I am the founder of IPFS and Filecoin. I wish I could be with you in person, but I cannot. I am stuck in a Filecoin mine. I hope you all have a great blockchain week. Hope I can be with you next year. Today, I introduce you to Filecoin. The launch of a fully distributed storage network is a very important moment in the history of web3 and the entire Internet. I can’t wait to discuss the future of this network with you.
The mission of Filecoin is to create a distributed, efficient and powerful foundation for human information. This task requires solving some major problems in the daily storage infrastructure, distributing cloud storage from a small number of centralized providers, providing users with complete control over their data, transforming the price of data storage into an efficient market, and allowing The network sets prices instead of the company’s pricing department, and can verify storage space to ensure that when someone says they are storing files, they are actually doing it. Optimize storage and increase the capacity of Zettabytes (Note: Zettabytes is the data capacity unit ZB, 1 ZB = 1 billion TB) capacity in the network to obtain data on a global scale.
We got rid of the world where a few cloud storage companies control the network and store most of the data for use in applications. Instead, we have entered a globally open market where anyone can become a data source provider, and the network itself can store data in every corner, thus bringing content to the edge where the customer base needs it most.
Miners often obtain this valuable service through learning, talking and communicating.
Now I want to talk about housing as an example. Let’s start with the overall need for data storage. The amount of data we generate as a new species has grown exponentially. By 2020, the amount of data we generate will reach 58 ZB. It is expected that this number will triple in the next four years.
More importantly, now only 7% of all generated data is being stored. Today’s cloud storage infrastructure simply cannot meet data storage needs. If you want to build a successful network in the future, we need to explore other different models.
Now, Filecoin has also changed the basic business case and cost structure of storage providers in today’s economy. To become an excellent storage provider in 2020, you need to do a lot of things, you need: CDs, tapes, server management, excellent connectivity, and good customer support, good marketing, good sales, etc. You must form a company and many more.
Now, instead, Filecoin enables storage providers to focus on the core business backend, which is a subset of the most important tasks that storage providers can perform, moving the business frontend to the entire network. Therefore, this is similar to how Airbnb works, in which the host will provide the backend of a specific service. The market provides users with a front end. The interesting thing about network security is that it allows small network providers to compete with larger hotels such as Marriott and Hilton.
Likewise, the popular network will allow small, medium and even large Filecoin storage providers to compete with large cloud companies. Now, one of the most important things to know about Filecoin is that it behaves like an export economy. You can treat all participants in the network as a group, and work together to provide valuable services to the rest of the world. Miners provide storage services to customers and hire storage service developers to build applications, tools, and services. All these groups trade with the rest of the world.
Let’s talk about the key points in recent months. First, Filecoin is active and the network is running. It has a capacity of 650 PB. This is a huge amount of storage. Now, Filecoin is more than just software. Filecoin is a fast-growing ecosystem with thousands of talents working towards a common goal. More talented developers, entrepreneurs, partners and community members join the network every day. It is the strength and development of this ecosystem that makes Filecoin unique.
Now, let’s look at the other parts of the network. I want to emphasize that we just held Filecoin Launch Week. We held a very large conference where many different participants came and gave speeches on its applications, mining tools, use cases, etc. I strongly recommend that you review the rich and useful content from all speakers. This is an absolutely excellent introduction to Filecoin.
Now, let’s talk about some market segments in the network. Let’s start with miners, Filecoin’s mining community is booming. Today, there are more than 550 miners in our network. It ranges from individual mining at home to large data centers around the world. Now, community miners have increased the functionality of the network from zero to 600 PB in less than two months. This is a remarkable achievement. It is equivalent to one million semi-micro essays, or equivalent to 170 million high-definition movies, or one hundred Netflix movie files, which is a huge capacity. Many of these facilities are very professional and you can view many videos posted online. But as you will see, these are very professional facilities with 24/7 maintenance and so on. In addition, compared with most large-scale encrypted networks, network functions are more widely distributed. These miners are distributed all over the world. I really want to congratulate all the popular miners because they are ready to accomplish our goal to increase all these amazing capacities and to store global information.
Next, I will introduce some applications and clients that have joined the ecosystem. Today, more than 90 important professional organizations participate in the Filecoin network as developers or customers. You can see a huge list on this map. It is also worth noting that we are a huge beneficiary of the IPFS ecosystem. The IPFS ecosystem has a large number of use cases and is growing at a rate of approximately 10 times each year. The IPFS application community has always been vital to Filecoin, especially for persistent storage. Therefore, we make it very easy for these people to integrate IPFS. The field of applications and clients is growing rapidly, so today I will focus on it.
First, it’s Slate. Slate is one of the best consumer applications in Web 3. It is the best experience for uploading, collecting and sharing personal data. It is completely open source, which means you can see how slate is built, you can take the code and fork it, and then create your own application at the next level. This is the first step towards a thriving data storage and transaction network, which is supported by IPFS, Filecoin and Textile and can be used by everyone. If you haven’t tried Slate, please check it out now. This is a very good product. You will be surprised that this is a web3 system.
Next is Fleek Space. This is also an open source application that provides a private file storage and sharing platform. You can think of it like Dropbox or Google Drive. But this is point-to-point encryption, only you control the key.
Now in the world of DeFi use cases, many different applications have appeared recently, and today I will focus on two of them.
The first is the storage market established by Codefi. This market allows miners to post asking prices at the storage prices they want to charge people. And it allows customers to browse miners and understand what the price is, etc.
The other is the mortgage market, which allows token holders to use Ethereum to lend Filecoin to stakeholders.
Now, one of the most important use cases stored on the Internet is video, which constitutes most online consumer traffic. Therefore, this is one of Filecoin’s main use cases. Now, I am happy to talk about this use case, because we have a complete video transcoding storage distribution pipeline using livepeer and Filecoin. Now, we finally realized a complete web3 native solution for video storage or on-demand, video viewing and real-time streaming. This is a huge achievement. I look forward to seeing that we can build all kinds of different things using videos on Filecoin.
Open bazaar and Haven have integrated Filecoin into the payment system. I hope that many other systems will allow Filecoin as payment.
Let us now discuss some development tools. The first is Power Gate. Power Gate is one of the most popular developer toolkits, which allows developers to deploy a tiered storage architecture using Filecoin and IPFS. If you are a developer and want to go to the next level in development, check out Power Gate. This is an incredible user experience.
Next is Truffke. Truffle recently released Preserve, which simplifies the process of storing long-lived application data on IPFS and Filecoin. Therefore, if you are using Truffle to build other features, such as Ethereum dapp, etc., you can save all applications and all assets directly to IPFS.
They are also working on Ganache integration, which allows developers to launch a local Filecoin emulator for rapid development and testing. As the most important developer platform of Ethereum, Infura now supports Filecoin. Therefore, this is an amazing achievement for all Filecoin developers.
Now, the next wave of web3 begins. Several next-generation blockchains have emerged, many of which have brought many improvements in smart contracts and transaction processing. Filecoin brings large-scale data storage and brings this feature to all other blockchains. Our goal is to be closely connected with other successful blockchains. Therefore, you can think of Filecoin as where the application will store all its data.
Now, some of the applications I have mentioned have established a solid bridge for Ethereum. And there have been bridges to Polkadot, Ethereum Classic and other blockchains. Now, in terms of infrastructure, there are already many wallets that support Filecoin. The first is Ledger, here is a complete Ledger program, you can use it to store and use your tracking records. There is also a local wallet called glyph. There are many other wallets, including metamask. That will add support soon. There are many hosting service providers, including Gemini, Coinbase and Anchorage. And there are many different communication support. The entire ecosystem is developing very rapidly. All kinds of new things appear every week, and I can’t wait to know what will happen in the next few months.
Okay, next, let’s talk about the community. Currently, more than 4,500 developers have actively contributed to the GitHub repository on the Filecoin network. This is a staggering number for projects that have just launched their mainnet. These thousands of contributors have contributed to more than 200 repurchases, including core protocols, proof libraries, developer tools, APIs, products, applications, and more. I also want to emphasize that today there are four separate teams working on four separate implementations of the protocol. There is Lotus, which is the main implementation and is now in use. Gold Star, formerly known as Go Filecoin, was developed by the IPFS Force team. Among them, Forest is an implementation in Rust developed by Chainsafe, and Fuhon is an implementation of c++ developed by Soramitsu. These implementations will ensure that additional security and functionality reach the network and make the network more resilient.
I also want to highlight some other organizations that are collaborating to build Filecoin. This includes Ledger Foundation, Ethereum Foundation, Ethglobal, Parity, Gitcoin, Consensys and other ecosystem partners. Developers like supranational have made incredible improvements to speed up the performance of our proof system. Many other developers have built tools, library services, etc. Our research collaborators include Stanford University Blockchain Research Center, IC3, BlockScience and many collaborators from many universities. Now, as a community, we come together and hold a lot of gatherings and meetings all over the world. I want to thank all the contributors and community members who spread the word and gave speeches to organize these meetings and gatherings. You are building this community, your ambassador, the voice of the project, and the future of Filecoin.
Finally, I want to highlight some new projects entering the Filecoin ecosystem. As we spoke, more than 250 new teams entered the ecosystem. This is thanks to the Filecoin Ignite series of events, where developers can learn, build and launch applications.
Now, I want to highlight some ramps that bring developers into the ecosystem. First, there are hackathons run by EthGlobal, such as HackFS. This is a one-month hackathon, which took place in July. More than 470 hackers participated and 134 projects were submitted. These hackers are located in 50 different countries/regions in 19 different time zones. Many different seminars and presentations have been held on YouTube for this event. If you want to view the projects you have done, you can find the showcase here. Many very cool things have been built, many of which are continuing to build companies.
Now there are other hackathons, such as the Spark University hackathon, which built a project on the Filecoin network, with more than 800 participants, 100 teams, 40 universities around the world, six continents, and 30 teams. Another program of Apollo in the Filecoin ecosystem. This is powered by Gitcoin. This is a community of builders undergoing a six-week mentoring program. The team has built a series of applications that were demonstrated last week, and you can view the showcase.
Filecoin Launchpad is supported by Tachyon and is part of the consensus. This is an accelerated program plan to build 13 teams of companies and organizations on the Filecoin network. They will receive US$80,000 in funding for a three-month in-depth instruction and participate in the demonstration day in January to attract more investment. Tachyon has selected more than 100 applications in total. We are very happy to see the achievements of these teams.
Finally, the Filecoin Frontier accelerator was announced two weeks ago, located in Singapore and Shanghai. This is a plan of 10 teams who are building professional companies and organizations on Filecoin. The team will receive $20,000 in funding. There is also a demo day, co-sponsored by Fenbushi Capital, LongHash Ventures and many others. You can apply for this program now. The plan will be launched in February and it will be an absolutely incredible plan for serious teams who want to build a team in Asia. Of course, there are many other programs to be launched.
Therefore, thanks to the more than 250 teams that have now entered the ecosystem. You are learning to build and deploy applications on the world’s largest distributed storage network. I can’t wait to see the products you build.
This is an overview of our ongoing ecosystem development achievements. Next, the next focus of the network is to use the huge capacity we assembled to store data for customers. It is time for us to focus on the market demand. In other words, each group has its own set of goals. In the next few months, they will be responsible for many different things. So let us study these groups in turn.
First, let’s look at the miners. Miners should focus on the growth of network capacity, and they should focus on acquiring Filecoin and optimizing data storage. They should focus on expanding to other countries, they should bring customers to Filecoin, and they should start making valuable transactions with customers. They should establish these relationships and develop them over time, and try to be potentially useful storage providers. In the end, Filecoin will greatly reward miners who provide customers with useful and valuable storage.
Next, let’s look at the developers. Developers should focus on learning the stack and developer tools, and then start building applications. The world is open to you. You can do many things. Therefore, developers can build consumer storage applications (such as Slate or Space) as well as video applications. Again, video will become one of Filecoin’s main use cases, and the entire pipeline is ready to be used with LivePeer. Developers can also build tools and services for the ecosystem. Miners and other teams need multiple tools. Developers can also build bridges with other chains, and can build new defi applications.
Now, customers should focus on learning and trying Filecoin, store their data on Filecoin by hiring miners, using applications such as Slate, Space, etc., find the best prices in the storage market, and start integrating their applications with Filecion.
Let us now look at the token holders. Token holders are active participants in the Filecoin economy. They can lend Filecoin to miners, as well as clients or developers. They can invest in mining companies, or they can invest in application developers who can support the ecosystem through subsidies. Of course, they can hold Filecoin, which is always helpful to the network.
Now, many participants in the Filecoin economy are related, such as resource providers that manufacture and sell hard drives, chips, data centers, etc. These resource providers can obtain large amounts of funds from the Filecoin network. Therefore, they are united and they should hope it succeeds. In fact, these resource providers can sell resources, and when the economy is shut down, finding miners will greatly increase the purchasing power of the entire Filecoin network. If you sell hard drives, please consider selling hard drives directly to Filecoin. They can also provide volume discounts for miners as a whole. It’s not that miners may order a lot of hardware and will continue to do so year after year. As a group, money managers can negotiate large discounts. These resource products can also be invested in mining companies themselves. After all, these mining companies are using their products. Of course, they can also design dedicated hardware for popular mining.
Next, let us look at the entire community. A wider community can focus on many of the same things you do, and you can continue to contribute on slack or GitHub. You can post information about topics in events or blog posts, and you can also host events, conferences, summits, etc. You can organize hackathons, parties, etc. In the final analysis, if these events, these exchanges, these dialogues occur, then they constitute the culture of the project.
Finally, I want to give you some ideas and suggestions. First, bring valuable data into the network. See customers who will be important customers in the Filecoin network and help them start using Filecoin. The more clients, the more successful the network will be. Looking for valuable data sets Filecoin should back up and look for valuable data sets that others want to calculate. Once the data is added to Filecoin, due to the gravity of the data, it will drive many users and clients on the network.
Second, build new applications on Filecoin. Filecoin is very powerful and can perform many things that could not be done before trying. Make a prototype and try it out. Build new applications that utilize these features. Such as data verifiability, cheap long-term storage, etc. Build applications that push the limits of document currency and blockchain.
Third, think that long-term Filecoin is long-term, not short-term. The best projects take many, many years to develop into their own Ethereum, Bitcoin, Internet, etc. Bitcoin took many years to cancel its applications based on a theorem. About two or three years after it started, the Internet itself started a scientific project, and it took decades to develop large-scale operations. It will take decades to reach most people on Earth. Today, the Internet supports almost everything we do in some way. So the best is yet to come. Usually those who work hard for a long time to get the best performance.
Now, a warning, if you only want short-term expenditures and don’t want to provide long-term value, then this is not your project. You should log out now. Filecoin aims to reward long-term thinking, not short-term thinking.
Fourth, there must be resilience. It is very difficult to build a blockchain. There will be many difficult moments in our future. There will be constant errors, and hopefully our failed groups will also launch attacks. There will be groups that want to take advantage of us or others. In our community decision-making, we will always have objections. Attackers will try to hurt us, they will try to divide us, they will try to attack each other. Don’t let them. They will lie, they will distort the truth, and they will seize every opportunity to hurt us. Now, you may remember that our values are what unites the community.
Now, thank you very much to everyone in the Filecoin community and all friends in the adjacent communities. Congratulations on reaching this huge milestone! Filecoin is online, Filecoin is yours! I am very happy and grateful to be with you. Now let us be the ones who preserve human information.
thank you very much.
