Filecoin reputation system is built to improve the success rate of miners' transactions

Digital MOB launched the first version of their Filecoin miner reputation system, now available on Filrep.io.

A reliable reputation system is crucial to the smooth operation of the Filecoin ecosystem. Storage clients must find the miner that best suits their specific needs among a vast number of storage miners. The reputation system exists to help them achieve this.

One challenge in building a reputation system is the sheer volume of data about Filecoin storage miners’ activities. Their goal is to mine this data and find out which data resonates most with miners’ reliability and performance, which is the basis for reputation scores. This is in stark contrast to data that can be used to differentiate miners, but has no impact on reputation itself.

The Filrep.io reputation system has two main complementary components:

1. The reputation score records the reliability of the miner when making transactions (reliability is understood as the miner's ability to successfully accept and complete storage and retrieval transactions).

2. A range of important metrics are important for storage clients when evaluating the best miners for their data needs (e.g. price, location, available space).

In the first version of Filrep.io, the reputation score only captures aspects related to the reliability of the stored transactions. The retrieval aspect of the system will be included in future versions.

Filrep.io provides all data through a public API and a dashboard. The system is designed to meet the needs of all ecosystem participants: developers can use the data provided by the public API to improve the miner selection options in their storage clients, miners can use the dashboard to check their performance compared to other miners and gain insights into how to improve their services, and storage clients can use the dashboard to select the best miner for their needs.

Credit score calculation method

The selection of the metrics and formula that make up the reputation score presents several challenges. A “one score fits all” approach must be avoided, and including many metrics in the score must be avoided.

For the sake of clarity, the Filrep.io development team decided to focus only on metrics that illustrate how well a miner is providing service to its customers. Another challenging question is the effect of time on a miner’s reputation. Should past activity have the same weight as recent activity? Forgiveness is a central mechanism that allows humans to let go of painful things that happened in the past. We decided that reputation scoring should also include a forgiveness mechanism, where mistakes that happened in the past would be given less and less importance over time.

Some guiding principles used throughout the design process:

• The score should reflect the miner’s behavior throughout the entire transaction process: from preparing to accept a transaction, to responding to price requests, and to accepting and completing the transaction.

• The score should reflect the quality of the service provided by the miner. (The quantity is also important, and the system provides indicators that represent the quantity: number of transactions, total data stored, etc. However, the score should not distinguish new miners who have just joined the protocol, because they only have a few transactions compared to old miners. As long as the transaction volume is small, new miners should have the opportunity to get a perfect reputation score as long as they can provide high-quality services to the community.)

• The formula should include a time decay mechanism that places more weight on miners’ recent activity.

Filrep.io's score has several components to cover all aspects that affect the successful completion of a storage transaction:

• The maximum score a miner can have is 100 points.

• The scoring is mainly based on three groups of indicators, each of which has a different weight in the total score.

• Proof of committed sector indicator: weight 30%. Before upgrading the committed capacity sector to a traded sector, miners submit proof of committed storage capacity to the network to receive rewards. Minimize failures to meet storage needs at any time.

• Online reachability: weighted 30%. The first step to initiate a storage transaction is to ask the miner for the FIL price. If this request fails, the storage process cannot continue and the miner will be punished. The reputation system queries miners regularly. To calculate the reachability score, we look at the distribution of successful/failed requests over a period of time.

• Transaction Metrics: 40% weight. The third component of the score reflects the success rate of a miner in successfully completing storage transactions. Making storage transactions is the bread and butter of miners, and this component has the largest weight in the score.

For a detailed explanation of how each component of the score is calculated, please visit the methodology section of the Filrep.io reputation website: https://filrep.io/methodology

The ultimate goal of Filrep.io is to provide the Filecoin community with a reliable, fair, and complete reputation system. Its development team is committed to permanently improving this tool by focusing on protocol improvements and community feedback. In the coming months, a series of new features and improvements will be added to the current implementation.

• Added retrieval metrics: time to first byte, speed of data retrieval.

• Allow miners to create user accounts and gain access to more functionality.

About Digital MOB

Digital MOB is a multidisciplinary software development company based in Romania with locations around the world, working with international clients who value quality of results above all else, creating memorable and meaningful experiences. Their extensive team of professionals specializes in web and mobile technologies, product design, system architecture, product development, and has many years of experience in blockchain technology.

Digital MOB has created a range of tools for the Filecoin community:

1. Filecoin.js: A JavaScript library for interacting with the Filecoin blockchain.

2. Filstats: A node telemetry monitoring tool that allows the community to view network statistics in real time.

3. Space Race: A collaborative competition supported by the Filecoin testnet to stress-test the network, encourage participation from around the world, and help miners prepare to run the world’s largest decentralized storage network.

4. Filpoll: FilPoll is a Filecoin community voting tool used to evaluate the community’s views on Filecoin improvement proposals.