Filecoin officially publishes a three-minute overview of the Filecoin virtual machine

On March 28, Filecoin’s official blog published an article introducing the EVM-compatible Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM), which aims to introduce programmability of smart contracts to the Filecoin network. After the article was published, the Filecoin token surged by 20%.

According to reports, the native code language of FVM is WASM (WebAssembly), which will first achieve EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) compatibility. With FVM, in addition to the existing storage functions, the Filecoin network can also obtain computing power.

In addition, Filecoin also released the FVM roadmap. FVM will be launched in stages. It is planned to introduce a protocol fork in the first quarter of 2022, and introduce preparatory adjustments before developers can program, including Gas mechanism and architectural adjustments. Then in the second quarter of 2022, programmability will be introduced, redesigning system roles and deeper protocol changes to make it easier to program for system roles.

Golden Finance gives you a quick overview of the Filecoin virtual machine.

The Filecoin network is a powerful platform for verified storage and access to NFTs, public product datasets, web3 and metaverse assets, and more. Think of it as the I/O layer for web3. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. By bringing general smart contract programmability to the Filecoin network, more value and potential can be unlocked. Layered computing on top of storage also opens up new dimensions for cross-chain interoperability and integration in a trustless manner.

Recently, Protocol Labs researcher Raúl Kripalani introduced the Filecoin Virtual Machine to the Filecoin community, which is a core pillar for the next step in the development of the decentralized storage ecosystem.

Why Filecoin introduces smart contracts

Smart contracts — or what we call actors in Filecoin — can power intelligent and dynamic storage solutions that are difficult to create using web2 technology. Examples include:

• Decentralize computation on data stored in Filecoin (run computation where the data is stored, rather than moving it)

• Crowdfunding for data preservation (e.g., everyone can fund the storage of socially important data, such as crime statistics or environmental warming)

• Smarter storage markets (e.g., dynamically pricing storage by time of day, replication level, or availability within a region)

• Multi-generational storage and persistent hosting (e.g. storing data across multiple generations)

• Data DAOs and dataset tokenization (e.g., modeling the value of data as tokens and forming DAOs to coordinate and proxy computations performed on it)

• Locally stored NFTs (i.e. the contents of the NFTs co-exist with the registry that tracks them)

• Time-locked retrieval (e.g., a dataset is unlocked only when company public results become available)

• Collateralized lending (e.g., lending to storage providers for a specific purpose, such as accepting FIL+ transactions from a specific customer, or onboarding capabilities within a specific time window)

and much more.

They also enable developers to create bridges for cross-chain interoperability as a means of sharing liquidity and integrating applications deployed in other chains (such as Ethereum, NEAR, Polygon, Solana, Flow, etc.) with the Filecoin network.

As Tier 0 storage

Currently, the Filecoin platform is centered around data storage and retrieval. These two features constitute the Layer 0 of the protocol.

The system is neat and simple, but not enough for developers seeking to build more complex applications and solutions through user-programmable smart contracts.

The next layer up, layer 1, is where smart contract programmability resides. Currently, the logic of the Filecoin network is hard-coded through system-defined actors. This means that user-defined smart contracts can only be used in Filecoin, through external bridges to other programmable blockchains such as Ethereum and NEAR (through solutions such as Textile Bridges). The Filecoin virtual machine brings native user-defined actors (sctors) to the Filecoin network.

Compatible with Ethereum's Filecoin virtual machine

The latest technical discussion started in June 2021 based on Filecoin Improvement Proposal 113. The Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) aims to be a multi-language VM, drawing inspiration from the concept of Hypervisor to build a multi-VM design. Many approaches were considered, including adopting EVM as is, LLVM-IR, eBPF, Secure EcmaScript, etc.

The native runtime of FVM is WASM. We believe WASM has a strong and promising future in the blockchain space. This choice makes it possible to write native actors in any programming language that can compile to WASM (although not all languages ​​are suitable; the reference SDK is built in Rust). This enables web2 developers to join web3 faster by allowing us to meet them where they are today and avoid the learning curve of specific languages.

Additionally, we are adding support for emulating external runtimes, the first of which is the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). This choice was motivated by the Filecoin developer community’s request that FVM support EVM/Solidity with zero to minimal changes to the source code.

Over time, we have seen the Ethereum community build a large number of useful and (most importantly) audited and battle-tested smart contracts, such as ERC-20 tokens, NFTs, DAOs, flash loans, etc. The possibility of reusing these contracts will kick off a Cambrian explosion of innovative, composable solutions in Filecoin. In addition, the ability for Solidity developers to connect solutions across chains through bridges and oracles will increase their collective value and utility.

It is also important to note that EVM compatibility is targeted at the bytecode layer, thus retaining the ability to fully utilize mature Ethereum toolchains in the Filecoin environment, such as Truffle, Remix, Hardhat, VSCode plug-ins, etc. In addition to deploying existing smart contracts, developers can also write new Actors in Solidity for quick startup, or upgrade to use native Actors when performance optimization is required.

Expanding the impact of the Filecoin network

With FVM, the Filecoin network gains computing power in addition to its existing storage capacity. We envision running two types of computing on the Filecoin network: state-based on-chain computing and data-based off-chain computing. FVM is a key component of both.

Some of the use cases that are emerging on Filecoin include:

Data-centric decentralized autonomous organizations (Data DAOs): By pooling resources from individuals and organizations, people will be able to incentivize the preservation, management, augmentation, and processing of shared interest and/or public product datasets. Data DAOs use tokens and NFTs as units to represent and compound value, and exchange these tokens to demand services, grant access rights, etc.

Replication Clients: Automated robots are incentivized to ensure that data in the Filecoin network maintains a certain degree of replication based on user-defined policies.

New storage markets: Based on auctions, bounties, or other tools, storage markets may apply error correction codes to data to ensure its recoverability in the event of an outage. They may also enable automatic retry of transactions to ensure data delivery.

Collateralized lending: Provide trustless and/or purpose-built collateralized lending to vendors, e.g., the loaned funds can only be used to accept FIL+ transactions from specific customers.

Data Computing: A big problem in large-scale computing is the transmission of data, which increases the cost and latency of each operation. By pushing computing jobs to storage providers that host data, and rewarding coordinating nodes to formulate strategies/plans for execution across the Filecoin network, parallelizable jobs can be executed in an efficient manner and the results can be stored back to the Filecoin network, enabling further downstream computing on it.

Additionally, FVM will enable Layer 2 (L2) solutions running on the Filecoin network to submit their state to Layer 1 (L1) for the first time, leading to more secure and traceable side and overlay networks. Content distribution networks (CDNs), reputation systems, and payment channel networks are some of the L2 solutions that we would particularly like to see run on Filecoin.

Development Roadmap

The near-term stages of the FVM development roadmap are as follows:

Phase 0: Canary launch of a non-programmable FVM on the mainnet, running only system participants following a feature flag or branch of the reference implementation (Lotus). Compatible with existing chains, no protocol upgrade required. This phase is scheduled for delivery in Q4 2021.

Phase 1: Protocol fork to introduce preparatory changes before user programmability, including gas schedules and architectural adjustments. By the end of this phase, 100% of the network should be running system participants supporting FVM. This phase is scheduled to go live in Q1 2022.

Phase 2: Introducing user programmability for native and foreign EVM participants. This phase is scheduled to go live in Q2 2022.

Phase 3: Redesign of system participants and deeper protocol changes to make it easier to program against system participants. This phase is scheduled to go live in Q2 2022.