Filecoin Project Survey—How Should Investors Make a Choice?

Preface

Currently, the Filecoin project has become the most sought-after star project in the blockchain because it is the most practical blockchain application project. As the main network of the Filecoin mining project is about to be launched, investors inside and outside the industry have also paid unprecedented attention to the project. However, the Filecoin mining companies on the market are of varying quality, and almost every company claims to be "the first to qualify", "the first in block production rate", "the first in effective computing power"... So what should investors pay attention to when choosing a Filecoin manufacturer to invest in? In this article, let the author explain in detail the "pitfalls" that manufacturers will not tell you in their publicity, and take you to understand the key factors that determine the output of Filecoin mining!

In order to popularize the Filecoin project for novices and lay a theoretical foundation for the analysis of the decisive factors of Filecoin output below, the author decided to first introduce the basic knowledge of the Filecoin project to everyone in a simple and easy-to-understand way. If you already have a certain understanding of this part or are not interested in it, you can also skip this part and go directly to the essence of this article.

The Concept of IPFS

The relationship between IPFS and Filecoin

The difference between Filecoin mining and BTC mining

A visual understanding of the Filecoin mining process

Count the pitfalls of Filecoin mining (the essence of this article!)

The main factors affecting Filecoin mining and coin production (the essence of this article!)

The Concept of IPFS

Before talking about the Filecoin project, let's first understand the concept of IPFS. IPFS (Inter-Planetary File System) is a peer-to-peer distributed file system, also known as the "Interplanetary File System". It is a new Internet protocol designed by Juan Benet in 2014. Its design goal is to achieve permanent data storage, remove duplicate data on the network, and obtain the data address stored on the node in the network. Compared with our current HTTP protocol central server storage data, due to the decentralized distributed storage characteristics of IPFS, it is more able to ensure the security of stored data, greatly reduce the cost of data storage, and increase data download speed. IPFS technology solves the most complex data storage security problem on the current Internet. Therefore, IPFS technology is of revolutionary significance to the Internet.

The relationship between IPFS and Filecoin

So what is the connection between the most popular Filecoin project and IPFS? IPFS data is distributedly stored, and we can call people who store data miners. There are two types of Filecoin miners: ① Storage miners (that is, helping others store files); ② Retrieval miners (helping others find files on the Internet). At present, the mining projects that everyone has come into contact with are all for everyone to be storage miners. Filecoin mining is actually a reward mechanism for storage miners in the IPFS protocol. We can simply summarize it with a formula: Filecoin = IPFS technology + blockchain application + digital currency.

The difference between Filecoin mining and BTC mining

Let's first take a brief look at the consensus mechanism of Filecoin mining. If you think Filecoin mining is similar to BTC mining, you are wrong! The consensus mechanism of BTC mining is POW, which is proof of work. The faster we calculate the decryption hash, the higher the probability of producing BTC. The calculation of the decryption hash depends largely on the speed of the chip processing data. Therefore, BTC mining has very high requirements for hardware, especially for chips, and generally uses customized chips.

On the other hand, a large amount of calculations consume a lot of electricity, so electricity costs are also an important parameter for measuring the cost of BTC mining. As for Filecoin mining, it is a kind of pledge mining, and its consensus mechanism is EC, that is, expected consensus. Filecoin mining is responsible for helping users store data. The stronger the storage capacity, the greater the chance of obtaining Fil. The power consumption in this process is not that large, so the electricity cost can be ignored in terms of cost, and no customized chips are required.

A visual understanding of the Filecoin mining process

Let's take a look at the Filecoin mining process through a short story. Let's set up a scenario where a math teacher projects a test paper on the blackboard and asks students to copy it down and answer it. For each question, the student who finishes and answers it first will have the opportunity to receive a certain reward.

So, the students took out their notebooks and started copying. After a while, the teacher asked: Who has solved the first question? At this time, 30 students raised their hands.

At this time, the teacher will first check whether the answer of the student who raised his hand is correct. If the answer is correct, in order to prevent students from directly copying other students' answers, the teacher will randomly ask about the problem-solving process and question details. If you can answer quickly, the teacher will assume that you have solved the problem by yourself. For students who solve the problem correctly, the teacher will also give a certain reward.

In addition, if a student is very fast at copying and solving questions, and can solve more questions than other students in the same time, then when the teacher asks who has the answer to the second question a few minutes later, there may be only 3 people raising their hands. At this time, because there are fewer people who have finished the second question, the probability of these people getting the reward for the second question will be much higher!

However, if some students are good enough and raise their hands every time the teacher asks who has given the answer, then for the sake of fairness, the teacher will not give rewards to the same student continuously.

Of course, students who receive rewards from the teacher also need to protect their notebooks well. The teacher will check at any time to see if they have copied questions and solved the problems. Once any abnormality is found, the teacher will assume that it is cheating and will give certain punishments!

Apart from the above figurative description, returning to the technical principle of Filecoin mining, Filecoin mining is the process of helping users store data in exchange for rewards. The entire Filecoin mining can be divided into two processes: data sealing and consensus proof.

First, let’s talk about the data sealing stage, which mainly includes four small stages: Precommit 1, Precommit 2, Commit 1, and Commit 2.

①Precommit1 phase (hereinafter referred to as P1 phase):

The system will divide the files that users need to store into sectors (blocks) of 32GB in size. In the P1 stage, miners will further split the sectors and then store them in order. 11 layers of calculations are required in the middle, and parallel calculations are not possible. Just like when we solve a problem, the next column formula needs to use the answer to the previous step, so it can only be calculated step by step. Therefore, this stage is time-consuming.

Is it possible to increase the speed? The answer is yes. A miner needs to occupy about 100G of memory to store a sector. If the memory is large enough, it is possible to store multiple sectors at the same time. Therefore, some manufacturers will optimize the size of the memory occupied by the software to store a sector to increase the speed of the P1 stage. Just like the students in the class could only copy one question on a page of paper, but now a student writes small characters, so he can copy 3 questions on a page of paper. So when everyone only has one page of paper, he can copy more questions than other students.

In addition, some people may see that some merchants will say that AMD's CPU has better performance. Why is that? In fact, in the process of storing sectors, the "sha256 algorithm" is required, and Intel servers do not contain the required sha256 microinstructions, which results in the use of Intel's CPU. The P1 stage takes a very long time. Just like some students have calculators when doing questions, then of course their problem-solving speed is much faster than other students who do pen calculations! Therefore, Filecoin officials also stated: It is recommended to use AMD's RX 3970x on the CPU, and the P1 stage takes about 4 hours.

②Precommit2 phase (hereinafter referred to as P2 phase):

The P2 phase is to calculate the Column Hash, generate Replica, and construct the corresponding Merkle tree, which is equivalent to the process of solving the problem and getting the answer. GPU acceleration can be used in this phase.

③Commit1 phase (hereinafter referred to as C1 phase):

The C1 stage is mainly to prepare the data needed for the circuit for the Sector proof. We can think of it as the preparation process before students raise their hands: take a quick look at the problem-solving process. This time is very short, usually within one minute.

④Commit2 phase (hereinafter referred to as C2 phase):

The C2 stage is the circuit processing of zero-knowledge proof and the process of generating zero-knowledge proof. It is equivalent to the stage where the teacher confirms whether the answer is correct. GPU acceleration can be used in this stage.

The consensus proof mainly includes two stages: Winning PoSt and Window PoSt.

①Winning PoSt stage:

Winning PoSt is to prove the submitted Sector data when obtaining the right to generate a block, and miners need to respond within a certain period of time (currently 45 seconds). It is equivalent to the teacher asking about the problem-solving process and details of the question, and the student needs to answer the corresponding content within 45 seconds. If the answer is correct, then the student has the opportunity to get a reward.

②Window PoSt stage:

Window PoSt is equivalent to the process that students who receive rewards need to accept the teacher's spot check. If any abnormalities such as missing problem-solving process are found, the teacher will impose certain penalties. That is, the miners who have received storage rewards are spot checked. Generally, each proof cycle is 1 day, and each cycle is divided into 48 windows. Spot checks are conducted every half an hour in each window to confirm whether the data is safely stored.

Count the pitfalls of Filecoin mining

"Pit 1": MLM coin, "MLM mining machine" scam

Due to investors' optimism about Filecoin mining projects and their eagerness to invest, various scams of "MLM coins" and "MLM mining machines" have emerged one after another. It is possible that the mining machines purchased by users are just a bunch of scrap copper and iron, and no coins can be mined after the main network is launched. Or some coins that claim to be exchangeable for Fil are essentially MLM, and they have run away before Fil mining has started.

"Pit 2": Filecoin transactions

As you can see on Feixiaohao, Filecoin has been listed on exchanges as early as 2017, but it should be noted that the Filecoin here is a futures contract! According to the latest official news, the Filecoin testnet reward plan will start at 6 am on August 25, 2020, and Filecoin has not yet been officially mined. And we can see that the price fluctuations of Filecoin futures are also relatively large. At present, the real Filecoin has not yet been produced. For investors, buying futures is risky.

According to information on Feixiaohao, Filecion has been listed on 53 exchanges. Among the top exchanges, OKEX has also recently listed FILUSDT perpetual contracts. Judging from the latest prices, the price gap between exchanges is large. The data I saw today showed that the largest gap was 318 yuan/Fil.

"Pit 3": Various "firsts" exaggerate their strength

The mainnet is about to be launched, which is also a common pitfall. All major manufacturers, whether on their official websites or in media articles, are full of "first" marketing. Some claim to be "first in effective storage capacity"; some claim to be "first in computing power"; some claim to be "first in block generation rate"... Which indicator represents the strength of the company and the actual benefits that users can obtain? Users who want to invest should also be "dazzled by the flowers".

The main factors affecting Filecoin mining and coin production

Currently, there are three main sales methods for mining machine manufacturers: mining machine sales, computing power sales, and software cooperation. Looking only at the pure software cooperation method, we can actually see the importance of software technology for Filecoin mining.

For users, the input-output ratio is the most scientific indicator to measure the project's benefits. However, there are many uncertainties about the future market price of Filcoin. Therefore, the current input-output ratio can be measured by the output of Filecoin per unit price per unit time. (Currently, only the data of the test network can be referred to). Based on the mining principle of Filecoin, the current common "pitfalls" and the author's comprehensive research and investigation, the author has summarized and analyzed the important factors affecting the input-output ratio of Filecoin mining. I believe that this content has a high reference value for both novices who want to understand the Filecoin mining project and miners who want to invest in Filecoin.

The main factors affecting the input-output ratio of Filecoin mining

(Note: Due to the fierce competition among manufacturers, most manufacturers do not disclose their core data to the public. Therefore, the author only summarizes and analyzes the main factors that affect Filecoin mining and coin production. Users can refer to and compare them when choosing manufacturers to invest in.)

1. Environmental impact

① Computer room star rating

The author has collected and sorted out the star rating and scoring requirements of IDC (Internet Data Center) computer rooms from the Internet. Generally speaking, the higher the star rating of the computer room, the higher the stability of its corresponding network, security, fire protection and other environmental factors. For Filecoin mining, since the storage proof process needs to respond in a very short time (currently 45 seconds, which may be adjusted later), environmental stability is very important.

Current status of manufacturers: There are many certified IDC star-rated computer rooms. According to some manufacturers, there is no need for them to build their own computer rooms. Currently, they all engage in leasing cooperation, mainly three-star and four-star computer rooms.

② Computer room address

Filecoin mining is a reward mechanism for miners responsible for storing data in the IPFS protocol. It is a practical blockchain application project. The data it needs to store is exactly the data that ordinary users need to upload to the network. When Filecoin mining allocates storage tasks, there is a principle of "allocation by proximity". Therefore, in cities with denser populations, the demand for uploaded data is greater, and the miners closer to the demand have a greater chance of "taking orders". Of course, in an era when the Internet speed has reached 10 Gigabits, this difference will not be particularly obvious, but as the Filecoin mining project continues to mature, this mechanism will still have a certain impact on the long-term development of the project in the future.

Current status of manufacturers: Currently, most of the leading manufacturers have multiple cooperative computer rooms, some of which are located in remote areas such as Inner Mongolia, and some are located in major cities such as Beijing and Hangzhou.

③ Power system

Since Filecoin mining requires constant response to system "inquiries", once the computer room encounters unstable power supply and other conditions that cause the response to fail, it will cause huge losses. Therefore, Filecoin mining machines are generally equipped with multiple power supplies. The more power supplies there are, the higher the security is.

Manufacturer status: Currently, manufacturers generally provide 2~4 power supplies.

2. Hardware Impact

①Memory

As mentioned above, when miners store data, storing one sector requires 100GB of memory. At this time, without optimizing the software, expanding the memory will also increase the number of sectors that can be stored at the same time, speeding up the storage of sectors, thereby increasing the block rate.

Current status of manufacturers: Currently, the memory of the manufacturer's mining machines is above 128GB, and the highest is up to 1TB.

②GPU

It mainly accelerates the Precommit2 and Commit2 stages mentioned above. The higher the GPU performance, the better the acceleration effect.

Current status of manufacturers: Currently, most mining machines manufactured by manufacturers use 2080TI, and the brands are not uniform.

③CPU

The CPU is mainly used together with the memory to improve storage efficiency. If you need to use the extra memory to store multiple sectors at the same time, you need a CPU with multiple threads. Each thread can support the data storage of 1 sector. In general, CPU threads should be considered in combination with memory and software optimization capabilities. If there is not enough memory, using a multi-core CPU is also a waste of resources. If there is enough memory but insufficient CPU threads, it will also cause a waste of memory space.

Current status of manufacturers: Some manufacturers’ mining machines have revealed 16 cores and 32 threads, 32 cores and 64 threads, etc. There may be thread waste (this needs to be considered in combination with memory and software optimization capabilities), but some manufacturers do not disclose data to the public and only state that they are multi-core processors.

④ Hard disk

Hard drives are mainly considered in two dimensions: the age of the hard drive and the capacity of a single hard drive.

Currently, the industry mostly uses hard drives from mainstream brands such as Western Digital and Seagate. Some miners who have transformed from POW mining will use second-hand hard drives to save costs. However, as we have mentioned above, Filecoin mining has very high requirements for the stability of data storage and reading, and there are great risks in using second-hand hard drives.

In terms of the size of a single hard disk, the larger the capacity of a single hard disk, the higher the storage capacity can be in a single storage machine, reducing the cost of hardware expansion. However, the larger the capacity of a single hard disk, the more disadvantages it has:

First, the cost of a large-capacity hard drive is much higher than that of a small-capacity hard drive. Currently, the industry mostly uses hard drives from mainstream brands such as Western Digital and Seagate. Taking Seagate as an example, the same level of hard drives in a JD self-operated store, 8T and 16T are priced at 1,699 yuan and 4,289 yuan respectively, and the price per T is 212 yuan and 268 yuan respectively.

Second, the larger the capacity of a single hard disk, the greater the Filecoin staking penalty will be if a hard disk or storage device fails. Therefore, the size of the hard disk has its pros and cons, which need to be weighed.

Current status of manufacturers: Currently, manufacturers offer single hard drives ranging from 4T to 16T. The situation varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, but 8T is the most common.

⑤ Number of mining machines

We can see the price of a single mining machine and operation and maintenance on the official website or promotional materials of some manufacturers. However, in fact, when we buy mining machines, the manufacturers will give some "package" references, similar to the minimum number of mining machines to be invested. One manufacturer I contacted gave a "personal investment version" suggestion of 5 mining machines forming a small cluster" and gave the approximate mining capacity of the plan. Therefore, investors also need to make arrangements according to their expected investment plan.

Current status of manufacturers: Currently, most manufacturers will not state this directly in their publicity. Generally, you need to find customer service sales to inquire about specific cooperation plans before they will explain this issue.

3. Software impact (key point)

①Packaging proof speed

The speed of packaging and proof refers to the speed and time of the six stages of P1, P2, C1, C2, Winning PoSt and Window PoSt mentioned above. According to the official test data, the P1 and C2 stages are the most time-consuming. Especially in the P1 stage, the official time is about 4 hours, and the memory occupied by processing a sector is about 100GB. If this data is reduced to 50GB, the time consumption of the P1 stage can be reduced by half! The competition for block generation is fundamentally a competition for storage speed. The less time this stage takes, the faster the data is stored. Therefore, it is very important for manufacturers to develop software to optimize this packaging speed.

The raw data of each process in this stage can be viewed through the code interface, as shown in the figure below. Users can compare the time consumption of each manufacturer by themselves. Of course, it is also necessary to confirm the configuration of the mining machine to obtain the data with the manufacturer.

Current status of manufacturers: The time consumption of the P1 stage varies greatly among different manufacturers. Some manufacturers with lower time consumption may not disclose this data. Some manufacturers that publicize this data may also use data obtained from a cluster of multiple machines, which requires careful identification and confirmation.

②Failed sector rate

Let's first introduce a new concept, sector: we will divide an empty hard disk into a certain amount of areas, called sectors, and the size of a sector is 32GB. If a sector is full of data, the sector will be sealed and Window Post will be sent in the form of sectors, which is the spot check every half an hour as mentioned above. However, there are also factors such as sealing failure and Window Post failure that cause sector loss monitoring. Sector loss will cause the loss of pledged coins and the deduction of effective computing power. The number of sector loss monitoring ÷ the total number of sealed sectors = failed sector rate. The higher the failed sector rate, the more likely it is to cause Filecoin loss.

Current status of manufacturers: Manufacturers that currently have node tests on the test network can search for relevant data on the test network. The failure sector rate ranges from less than 0.1% to more than 20%.

③ Cluster system

Filecoin mining block packaging rights have a mechanism, as shown in the following formula:

The left side of the formula is a random number. Once this random number is generated, it will not change. The right side of the formula is the percentage of the miner's limited sectors to the total number of sectors. The more limited sectors a miner has, the greater the value of the formula on the right, the greater the possibility of satisfying the inequality, and the greater the block packaging right. In other words, the larger the effective storage capacity of the mining machine, the higher the block packaging right, and the Matthew effect of "the strong get stronger" will appear. The cluster system is to pool the storage capacity of a single mining machine together to strive for a higher block packaging right. Therefore, the more effective sectors of the mining machines added to the cluster system, the higher the sector ratio of the cluster system.

Current status of manufacturers: Currently, most manufacturers have their own cluster systems, and the number of mining machines that can be installed is different for each manufacturer.

4. Price Factor

① Mining machine fees

Filecoin mining hardware mainly consists of three parts: computing equipment, storage equipment and GPU. Storage equipment and GPU cost account for about 75%. Mining machines with high configuration will have higher corresponding costs, but as we have mentioned above when talking about hardware factors, high configuration may also cause waste of resources, so we need to confirm whether "high configuration" is really necessary.

Have you ever thought about how many months it will take for all the data to be fully stored after we buy a mining machine? According to the current manufacturer's own statement, it usually takes about 2 to 6 months, and there are certain differences depending on the different configurations. So, it is not that after buying a mining machine and paying a year's service fee, your mining machine can actually work for 1 year. Therefore, investors can plan a certain number of mining machines, expand mining capacity, and make full use of resources.

In addition, manufacturers may boast about unlimited expansion technology, but is it really possible? Currently, most manufacturers in the industry support unlimited expansion, but don’t forget one premise: can the mining machine you purchased always work for you?

According to what I have learned, the service life of a mining machine is about 3 years, just from the perspective of equipment loss. In other words, a mining machine can be "infinitely expanded" for 3 years. And we also need to consider the iteration and update of software: in the next 3 years, more efficient and advanced technologies may have appeared, and your mining machine may no longer have the value of mining. Therefore, it is extremely important for the manufacturer to provide this part of the guarantee content, such as whether it supports free replacement of the latest software and other services, and it must be confirmed to be written into the contract!

Current status of manufacturers: Currently, there are large differences in the configuration and price of mining machines among manufacturers, with the price of mining machines ranging from hundreds of thousands to more than 200,000 yuan. When purchasing a mining machine, generally only the service fee and other conditions will be explained, and the service guarantee for subsequent software updates will not be explained. Investors need to understand and pay attention to it themselves.

② Computing power costs

Currently, most manufacturers provide cloud computing power leasing. It seems that this data is approximately equal to the input-output ratio, which is very intuitive and transparent in comparison. In fact, it is not. Cloud computing power also has pitfalls!

First of all, we need to pay attention to the contract period of cloud computing power and whether service fees are charged. Currently, most cloud computing power contracts on the market are for 1 year, some are for 2-3 years, and some will charge a certain percentage of service fees from the output income.

The cost of cloud computing power can generally be converted into XX yuan/T/year, but is it enough to just compare the price per T? The answer is of course no. Another important factor we need to pay attention to is the time it takes to fill up a T.

The larger the proportion of effective sectors in Filecoin mining, the greater the block power. With the same computing power of 1,000 yuan/T/year, the final output of Fil is completely different if it takes 1 month to store 1T and 2 months to store 1T, and the gap will gradually widen over time, with a difference of several times. Therefore, we also need to refer to the packaging speed of the mining machine.

Current status of manufacturers: Currently, manufacturers rent computing power at a price ranging from 1,000 yuan/T/year to 2,000 yuan/T/year, and generally do not disclose the time required to fully store a single T.

③Service fee

In addition to mining machines or computing power fees, most manufacturers also have service fee agreements, generally charging a certain percentage of the Filecoin produced as service fees.

Current status of manufacturers: The service fee ratio is generally around 15%~20%. Some manufacturers do not charge service fees for cloud computing power.

④ Custody fee

That is, the cost of hosting the mining machine in the IDC room after purchasing the mining machine. Since Filecoin mining requires an extremely stable environment, personal mining generally requires mining machine hosting. Some manufacturers will combine the service fee and the hosting fee and charge them together according to a certain proportion of the Filecoin produced. So which of these two models is better?

We assume that mining can pay off in one year, and the investment in purchasing a mining machine is 200,000 yuan. The corresponding fees of the two charging methods are as follows, which you can refer to for yourself.

Current status of manufacturers: Generally between RMB 10,000/year/unit and RMB 20,000/year/unit. Some manufacturers charge a combined service fee, which can be considered together with the service fee.

⑤ Input-output ratio

The input-output ratio here is a parameter promoted by the manufacturer. It is the output of effective storage capacity. Its meaning is the effective storage capacity generated per hour for every RMB 10,000 invested. The higher the input-output ratio, the higher the cost-effectiveness in theory. However, the output of this effective storage capacity is not necessarily proportional to the output of Filecoin. It also needs to be combined with the sector failure rate we mentioned above.

Manufacturer status: Currently, most manufacturers can provide this data, and some manufacturers also directly disclose this data on their official websites, and users can check it by themselves. Generally, the current manufacturers are in the range of 2.5GB/H/W~5GB/H/W.

5. Company Strength

①Technical team experience

As we mentioned above, Filecoin mining capabilities are essentially the competitiveness of software optimization, and software optimization depends on the development and upgrade of the technical team. The experience of the technical team and the stability of its members have a profound impact on the manufacturer's future mining capabilities.

Current status of manufacturers: The size of the general technical team ranges from a dozen people to dozens of people, and their experience and capabilities need to be specifically examined.

②Software Cluster Patent Certificate

At present, there are still some manufacturers who do not have their own development team and only sell hardware. For the software part, they buy software from other companies to sell the mining machines as a whole. There will definitely be some price differences in the middle. For investment users, first, the cost performance is not high, and second, the security is not high. Therefore, the software and cluster patent certificates can be confirmed during the inspection.

Current status of manufacturers: Most software manufacturers will explain directly when you purchase the software. If there is no explanation, you can confirm it again.

③Code contribution

Since the official release of Filecoin source code, the code has been continuously upgraded, part of which comes from unofficial code contributions. Code contributions first require solid technical strength and the ability to interpret official code; secondly, they need to improve the code based on their current experience; finally, they need to be officially recognized before their contributions can be adopted and recognized. It can be said that code contributions reflect the cutting-edge level of Filecoin code technology in the industry, and also reflect the company's technical strength from the side.

Current status of manufacturers: Some manufacturers continue to contribute source code. The number of code submissions by each source code contributor can be viewed on GitHub, as follows:

URL: https://github.com/filecoin-project/go-filecoin/graphs/contributors?from=2017-12-03&to=2020-07-15&type=c

④Current mining machine scale

Why does the current scale of the mining farm also affect our subsequent output of Filecoin? We mentioned above that Filecoin mining is a pledge mining mechanism, that is, the more Filecoins you can pledge in the early stage, the higher your qualification for mining. This can be referred to a certain extent by the effective computing power of various manufacturers at present.

Manufacturer’s current status: You can refer to the effective computing power of the test network and confirm the scale of the current test mining machine with the manufacturer.

⑤ Delivery capability

At present, the main network is about to be launched, and many manufacturers need to deliver mining machines in the near future. The order volume after the main network is launched should also surge. We also need to examine whether the manufacturer is capable of supplying and the delivery timeliness. According to the author's understanding, most manufacturers currently use some hardware, and the market is short of AMD CPU and other accessories. Therefore, manufacturers with reliable and stable supply chain relationships are relatively more powerful. Investors should pay special attention to the liability for breach of contract in the delivery of mining machines when signing a purchase contract.

Current status of manufacturers: Before the mainnet goes online, they are basically urging suppliers to ship goods and put mining machines on the shelves. During the inspection, you can confirm with the manufacturers.

⑥After-sales service

In addition to the terms and conditions stated in our contract, there may be unexpected situations in after-sales service, so we also need to consider the service attitude of the manufacturer. For example, when Filecoin announced that it would launch the main network two years ago, some manufacturers had already started selling mining machines in large quantities. Most of them used Intel processors that were not suitable for the current mining algorithm, and the mining efficiency was low. The after-sales service attitude of these manufacturers can be seen from the after-sales treatment of these investment users.

Current status of manufacturers: Currently, after-sales terms are mostly short-term predictable terms.

Above, we have discussed in detail the main factors that affect the output of Filecoin mining. At present, the test reward is about to be launched. The author will continue to pay attention to the mining situation of various manufacturers after the test reward is launched, and will also scientifically compare the final input-output ratio data of each manufacturer based on the mining situation of the test reward. At that time, a strength comparison analysis report based on the test reward data will be output. Of course, the author will also continue to pay attention to the performance of various manufacturers after the main network is officially launched.

Through the author's various investigations and surveys, we have also collected relatively outstanding leading manufacturers in the IPFS field, such as 1475, Encryption Matrix, Xianhe System, Binhe Cloud Intelligence, Spacetime Cloud, Dot Storage Technology, etc. Of course, there are also many manufacturers such as Force Zone, Firefly, Star Agent, Yunhu Computing Power, Maike Storage, Lingdong Technology, Computing Power Interconnection, Net Storage Technology, Interstellar Continent, Galaxy, etc., which are also well-known. But after all, IPFS is still a new field of investment, and you and I may be dark horses. After the mainnet is launched, DPRO will continue to pay attention to these manufacturers, and will eventually rank them based on the user's input-output ratio. Interested friends can search for "DPRO Block Supervision" on WeChat to follow the author's subsequent posts.

Author: DPRO-Tangyuan, DPRO-Hualuo

Disclaimer: The author's opinions do not constitute investment advice. Investment is risky and investors need to be cautious. Copyright belongs to the author. For commercial reprint, please contact the author for authorization. For non-commercial reprint, please indicate the source.