The mainnet of Filecoin is about to be launched. Filecoin is riding the wind and waves

At 19:30 on the evening of July 10, Chu Chu, founder of Lanben Finance, talked with BW CPO Ruby and 1475 CMO Eason: Filecoin is riding the wind and waves.

Let’s review the live broadcast content together.

Many people who have just come into contact with Filecoin are still not very clear about the relationship between IPFS and Filecoin. In fact, IPFS is not equal to Filecoin, so what is the relationship between the two? What is the difference?

IPFS is an interplanetary file system. Specifically, it is a protocol and a P2P network, similar to the current BT network, but with more powerful functions. IPFS was created to replace the existing HTTP protocol of the Internet and create a better Web environment for us. In layman's terms, IPFS is a protocol or software. When each of us has this software installed on our computers or devices, our computers can communicate with each other. These computers with the protocol installed are linked into a network, and people can use the storage, broadband and other resources in this network, but those who install the software and contribute resources will not get any rewards.

But with the incentive mechanism of Filecoin, who contributed how much resources and who used how much resources can be accurately calculated, and sales and purchases can form a decentralized storage trading market. Filecoin is a distributed storage network created based on IPFS, and the incentive layer token is also called Filecoin (FIL for short). IPFS and Filecoin are both projects of Protocol Labs, and the two complement each other. So if you want to do Filecoin well, you have to do IPFS well first.

People compare IPFS to the cornerstone of Web3.0 and the new infrastructure of blockchain . It can be seen that IPFS is a basic thing for the blockchain world . Why can IPFS become infrastructure ?

Blockchain technology and cryptocurrency play an important role in the development and decentralization of Web3. The blueprint and vision of Web3.0 are unprecedented, and the popularization of Web3.0 will be a revolution at the entire Internet level. However, this cannot be achieved by relying solely on blockchain technology. The blockchain is inherently highly redundant, and considering performance issues, only a small part of the data is uploaded to the chain.

The data storage of web3.0 will be distributed, and the security level of the blockchain network is very high. However, it is too expensive to use blockchains based on consensus mechanisms such as POW to store various data. Storing some non-critical data in a way close to the security level of blockchain is an optimal solution. IPFS provides such a solution. It can store data in a distributed manner. Without changing the data identifier, the data stored on the IPFS network cannot be changed. This gives it an inherent advantage in becoming an infrastructure.

The blockchain was created to achieve decentralization, reach consensus without a central organization, and jointly maintain a ledger. Its design motivation is not for high efficiency, low energy consumption, or scalability (if you pursue high efficiency, low energy consumption and scalability, centralized programs may be a better choice). IPFS works with blockchain to make up for the two major defects of blockchain:

1. Blockchain storage efficiency is low and costly.

2. Cross-chain requires cooperation between chains, which is difficult to coordinate.

Regarding the first problem, the blockchain network requires all miners to maintain the same ledger, and each miner needs to keep a backup of the ledger locally. In order to ensure that the information stored in the blockchain cannot be tampered with, each miner also needs to keep a backup, which is very uneconomical. Imagine that there are 10,000 miners in the entire network. Even if we want to save 1MB of information in the network, the storage resources consumed by the entire network will be 10GB. At present, there are also compromise solutions to alleviate this problem.

When building decentralized applications (DAPPs), the widely adopted approach is to store only hash values ​​in the blockchain and store the information that needs to be stored in a centralized database. In this way, storage becomes a shortcoming in decentralized applications and a vulnerable link in the network. IPFS proposes another solution: you can use IPFS to store file data and place the only permanently available IPFS address in the blockchain transaction without having to put the data itself in the blockchain.

Regarding the second question, IPFS can assist different blockchain networks in transmitting information and files. Bitcoin and Ethereum have different block structures, and different distributed data structures can be defined through IPLD. This function is still under development. The current IPLD component has realized the storage of Ethereum smart contract code through IPFS. In Ethereum transactions, only this link needs to be stored.

To solve these problems, IPFS is currently the best solution, so IPFS will become the new infrastructure of blockchain.

As for the future of Filecoin, it actually has seven major advantages:

First: Save energy

Second: Sharing Economy

Third: Storage Sharing

Fourth: Network sharing

Fifth: Technological progress

6. Blockchain Infrastructure

Seventh: Data ownership and credibility

After 2019 , Filecoin has been the most discussed topic in the market . Please ask the two guests to share why Filecoin has been so popular in the market and continues to rise ?

The market itself does need a trigger point after the BTC halving. Will it be Filecoin? We will wait and see. At the same time, Filecoin itself has a strong community foundation. The community ecology of Filecoin is rich enough, from the project establishment to the current 400,000+ active nodes.

Filecoin has been low-key since 2017 and has survived many public opinions and criticisms for three years. With the gradual launch of the development network, test network, and main network, the market heats up, which shows that it can stand the test of time. Filecoin has a large amount of capital investment and can become the leader in the distributed storage industry, which are important factors.

1. The stories in the market have been told almost completely, BTC halving has also taken place, and the profit margin of mining can be calculated, so finding new wealth targets has become everyone’s main demand.

2. IPFS/Filecoin itself is top-notch, with investors including Sequoia, YC, Stanford and Gemini Brothers. Coinbase and Gemini Exchange support it on public platforms. Google, Amazon Cloud and others have already applied the IPFS protocol.

3. It is not only a blockchain project, but also the cornerstone of web3.0, playing a vital role in transforming centralized networks into peer-to-peer networks.

We currently see that many exchanges have launched Filecoin futures . In fact, most of the current mining machines are also a kind of futures for those who want to invest . So, compared with platform token futures and mining machine futures, which one will have better returns ?

This depends on investment expectations, cycles and investment preferences. Token futures can be sold at any time before the mainnet is launched. It is the only way to invest in Fil besides mining machines , and it is also the fastest way to realize cash. Mining machine futures are definitely expected for the first mine bonus. The mining machine does not need to lock the tokens, but the amount of coins that the mining machine can produce directly determines the size of the income and the payback period. Therefore, it is very important to choose a reliable mining machine manufacturer.

1) Platform futures: They are temporarily unable to circulate between exchanges, so choosing an exchange with a strong brand advantage and a high circulation depth is a better choice, which is equivalent to buying eggs that will be produced in a month at an expected price.

2) Mining machine futures: In essence, it is the purchase of underlying assets with future income rights, which is equivalent to buying a chicken that lays eggs. 3) Therefore, there is no difference between the two, only the difference in investment strategies between the primary market and the secondary market.

3) The cost for miners to obtain tokens is relatively lower, and the platform futures investment cycle is relatively shorter.

If ordinary people want to profit from Filecoin mining, what should they pay attention to when choosing a mining machine ? In addition to mining , are there other ways to participate and make profits ?

Many mining machines on the market, including cloud computing power, are still risky. The price is high, but you may not be able to mine Fil in the end. You should pay attention to network bandwidth, hard disk capacity, geographical location, hardware configuration, mining machine system, etc. It is of course the best choice to choose a well-known one, such as 1475.

Ways to participate include Fil futures and the recently popular Fil futures subscription. According to statistics, more than 30 exchanges have already launched Fil futures, which is enough to illustrate its popularity and expectations for profits.

1. Choose mining machines or computing power products: Mining machines have physical delivery and investment thresholds; computing power is simple, but the assets are not transparent and the participation threshold is lower.

2. Be careful of the trap of using one machine to mine multiple items, because the mining principle and consensus mechanism of filecoin are different from those of other projects. Therefore, under the current situation, machines that can mine filecoin cannot mine tokens of other projects.

3. “How much per T” does not represent the cost-effectiveness, because Filecoin mining is not based on the hard disk capacity, but on the effective storage after packaging and verification. Therefore, a large hard disk capacity does not mean high mining income.

4. Pay attention to the input-output ratio: that is, how much effective computing power you can increase per unit time for every 10,000 yuan you invest. Because the effective computing power is proportional to the block output, the most critical factor is to obtain more computing power under the premise of a certain investment.

In addition to mining (primary market), of course you can trade coins on exchanges (secondary market) and participate in the futures market. In the future, the Filecoin ecosystem will be more sound and you can make profits through ecological applications.

Finally, I would like to ask you two to talk about what layout plans BW Exchange and 1475 team will have in the Filecoin ecosystem in the future ?