Filecoin miners dominate the charts, cheat on data, and form alliances to start an arms race

After the launch time of the independent network was determined, the Filecoin field, especially the Filecoin mining nodes, attracted a lot of attention from both inside and outside the circle.

Similar to the traditional Bitcoin mining landscape, Filecoin mining nodes already showed signs of being dominated by giants before the mainnet was launched.

The top three nodes account for about 70% of the total effective storage value. In order to survive, small and medium-sized mining nodes choose to form alliances and cling to others.

On this basis, all parties are actively competing in technology, funds, and publicity, and trying hard to increase their presence in the market. Although the main network has not been launched, an arms race for Filecoin has quietly begun.

"On the Filecoin mountain, two companies dominate"

Recently, the Filecoin field has been very hot.

On June 14, Filecoin business developer Angie Maguire said the project's mainnet will be launched this summer. The public roadmap shows that the Filecoin mainnet is expected to be launched in the time window of July 20 to August 20.

With the mainnet launch time confirmed, Filecoin miner nodes took center stage.

According to data from the filcount.io platform, there are currently about 806 Filecoin nodes worldwide. Among them, according to statistics from Filecoin.cn initiator Xie Dapao, there are as many as 203 nodes from China, accounting for about a quarter of the total.

It can also be clearly seen on the Filecoin miner node distribution map that the world's miner nodes are mainly concentrated in countries and regions such as China, the United States and Europe, among which China's nodes are the most densely populated.

"China is an absolute giant in this field." Zhang Chenglong, the original force of IPFS, told DeepChain.

As of now, among the top 10 known mining nodes in the world, except for the 8th-ranked node whose identity is unknown, the other 9 mining nodes are all from China.

“Not only that, Chinese miner nodes, including the Force Zone, are also deploying overseas.” Zhang Chenglong told DeepChain, “When the 4 million FIL miner rewards are settled, we will be able to see the effectiveness of the deployment of Chinese nodes.”

Where there are interests, there are rivers and lakes and disputes.

A few months ago, things were harmonious, but now things are getting tense. This is Zhang Chenglong’s impression of the current Filecoin ecosystem.

"The current Filecoin ecosystem is very similar to the Cold War era when the United States and the Soviet Union were competing for hegemony." Filecoin miner Lao Zheng described it to DeepChain.

t01009 (Spacetime Cloud & Lingdong) and t02020 (Xianhe System) are competing with each other, the top ten miners are ready to go, and the remaining miners are "focusing on participation". This is the Filecoin landscape in Lao Zheng's eyes.

Currently in the Filecoin ecosystem, the total effective storage value is 17.39PiB, of which the two nodes t01009 and t02020 contributed 6.29PiB and 5.55PiB respectively, accounting for 68% of the total storage value.

If the storage value share of the other eight nodes in the top ten is included, the figure reaches 92.23%, which means that the remaining more than 700 mining nodes can only get less than 8% of the share.

Anyone with some knowledge of mining knows that mining mainly relies on "computing power" and consumes a lot of social resources (hardware, electricity, capital investment, etc.). For example, Bitcoin is obtained by consuming a lot of resources. The "computing power" of Filecoin is "effective storage capacity", and the size of effective storage determines the miner's probability of producing blocks and income.

Data from the mining website shows that the theoretical total daily output of FIL (Filecoin tokens) after Filecoin goes online is 177,837. Among them, 1T of storage value can get a reward of 9.99 FIL per day. The more storage value, the greater the daily income.

It is worth noting that on the evening of June 30, t01009 and t02020 still accounted for 67% of the total storage value.

In less than a week, the effective storage value of the two major mining nodes rose again to 68%, further squeezing the living space of other mining nodes.

So much so that some miners have said that Filecoin is aging prematurely and has not yet grown up, but the Matthew effect is already so obvious.

Zheng did not comment on the view that the Matthew effect has begun to appear in the Filecoin field. But he also admitted that except for the top few mining nodes, the rest are basically unable to escape.

"After the mainnet goes online, there may be no more than 10 companies left. In the long run, there may only be 3 to 5 companies left." 1475 partner Wang Qingshui expressed the same view in an interview with the media.

The reason for this view is that Filecoin's mining performance depends on the effective storage share. The higher the effective storage share, the higher the final mining efficiency, and effective storage requires time to accumulate.

In other words, the level of Filecoin miners after the mainnet launch has, to some extent, been differentiated before the launch.

However, since the mainnet has not yet been officially launched, the current ranking of effective storage value is still only of reference value and has not been truly implemented. In the future, as the overall effective storage value of the Filecoin ecosystem increases, whether there will be new nodes that overtake, and whether the effective storage value will be further dispersed, there is no conclusion yet.

“The node rankings you see now are meaningless and not real rankings of strength,” Zhang Chenglong told DeepChain. “Many nodes chose to remain silent before the mainnet went online, and will go into full swing once the mainnet goes online.”

But whether it is Lao Zheng or Wang Qingshui, they all believe that very few mining nodes will survive in the future.

"Filecoin mining oligopoly is a trend, but it will definitely go through multiple reshuffles." In Zhang Chenglong's view, at least for a period of time after the mainnet is launched, many players will emerge in the Filecoin mining field.

During war, arms dealers often make a lot of money, but the competition in Filecoin is fierce, and the demand for technology at each node is getting higher and higher.

Xie Dapao, who focuses on providing technical services for Filecoin nodes, told DeepChain, "More and more people have come to me recently."

From single-soldier combat to alliances

With so many miners emerging, how can they survive and stand out? Miners have come up with many ideas, such as spending money to run data.

The reason why major mining nodes would rather lose money than take the first place by running data is mainly because the main network is about to be launched and the real fight is about to come. All parties need to absorb as much effective storage value and funds as possible to meet the challenges.

Just like in last year’s BCH fork war, both Jihan Wu and Satoshi Wright tried their best to increase computing power.

“As soon as the test network was launched, all the mining machines were turned on, and money was spent to dominate the rankings. In an instant, the data was pushed to the top, and then they announced to the outside world that they were the boss in the industry.” Lao Zheng told DeepChain, “This is a common practice.”

“I’ve heard before that some mining nodes spent a lot of money to start up, but because the mainnet launch time was repeatedly changed, the mining nodes finally ran out of money and closed down.” Lao Wang, an employee of Xi’an Lingdong, told DeepChain.

In addition, there are some mining nodes that stack hundreds or even thousands of machines at the same time, and do not talk about the block output of a single machine per unit time, in order to show their strength in the number of blocks produced; what's more, some people increase the number of blocks and then gradually reduce the effective storage value, thus creating the illusion that their mines have high single-T efficiency.

In short, there are countless means.

However, no matter how many means there are, in Lao Zheng's opinion, it is nothing more than selling mining machines.

On June 10 this year, Protocol Labs released a 4 million FIL miner reward plan, which immediately attracted Filecoin miners from almost all over the world to participate.

Someone joked that if 312 is a rehearsal for Bitcoin miners before the Bitcoin halving, then the 4 million FIL reward plan is a rehearsal for Filecoin miners.

No one will be indifferent to 4 million FIL, and no one will not try their best for the reward.

However, not all participants can reap the rewards.

According to the rules of this competition, only the top 50 nodes in each region will receive rewards. The ones most affected by this rule are a large number of small and medium-sized miners.

Either their own mining machines have poor performance, or they entered the market late and have not accumulated enough effective storage value to compete with the top mining nodes.

In addition, due to the particularity of the Filecoin mining industry, in addition to mining machines, comprehensive preparations are also required for computing, storage, networking, operation and maintenance, etc., and these factors are not something that small and medium-sized miners can handle.

So these people chose to unite.

"There are many miner node alliances, both large and small. There are small and medium-sized miners who stick together for warmth, and there are also strong alliances between large nodes." said Xie Dapao.

On the one hand, small and medium-sized miners form their own groups, but more of them cling to the big miners, integrate their own computing power into the big miners' system, and use the advanced technology of the big miners to empower themselves, so as not to fall behind after the main network is launched.

“The reason why Spacetime Cloud/Xi’an Lingdong is the first is because it has absorbed and integrated many other communities.” Lao Wang, an employee of Xi’an Lingdong, told DeepChain, “We are the first in Filecoin in every field, and the alliance is the best way.”

In addition, after the alliance, we will be able to better cope with the clustering of Filecoin mining.

Unlike the single-machine stacking cluster method of the Bitcoin mining pool, Filecoin mining requires a large amount of data processing, and a single machine cannot quickly complete actions such as data addition, sealing, certification, and message chaining, which will result in very low mining efficiency.

Therefore, large Filecoin miners will basically adopt heterogeneous clusters or even more complex cluster solutions, break down the mining steps, use different equipment to perform different tasks, and optimize every link from hardware configuration to algorithm as much as possible.

Although cluster mining requires a lot of extra overhead for internal coordination, and intranet data transmission may also cause bottlenecks, the computing power accumulates quickly and can at least quickly reach the official block computing power threshold.

In addition, there is another very important reason that forces everyone to use clusters: a larger total computing power makes it easier to get on the list, and to gain advantages in ranking high in terms of computing power, block production rate, and number of FILs obtained.

To achieve cluster mining, it is necessary to continuously unite so that miners have sufficient mining machines to distribute tasks. Continuous uniting will also widen the gap in the storage value share occupied by miner nodes.

Miners who unite together can gain the qualifications to participate in Filecoin construction and obtain token rewards by banding together for warmth, while most mining nodes are likely to die in the dark night before dawn.

"After the mainnet goes online, there may be a reshuffle"

From the data brushing of miner nodes to the alliances between nodes, there is only one purpose, which is to firmly grasp the advantageous position and win the competition.

However, the problems faced by Filecoin miner nodes go far beyond this.

Hu Feng, COO of Spacetime Cloud, once told the media that the popularity of Filecoin has attracted the attention of many traditional miners. Traditional Bitcoin miners such as Canaan Creative, F2Pool, and NiuBit have already entered the market or are in the process of making plans.

Although there is no news about traditional mining machine giants entering Filecoin, Canaan Creative also officially issued a statement to refute the rumors, saying that it has no plans to enter IPFS.

But in the view of some Filecoin miners, if traditional large miners enter the market, it will have an impact on the current mining node structure of Filecoin to a certain extent.

In addition, as mentioned above, although the miner node test network shows off its strength, there is no lack of "false prosperity" brought by brushing data. Therefore, to some extent, it is difficult to truly evaluate the true strength of a miner node by simply looking at the node ranking of the test network.

When the Filecoin mainnet is launched, it will become clear whether it is a mule or a horse, and the competitive landscape will also change to some extent. The strong ones will be at the forefront, and those who "win" by spending money and brushing data in the short term may be left behind in the long-term competition.

Similarly, the alliance policy introduced in order to stand out in the testnet stage and better cope with the competition after the mainnet is launched is not without disadvantages.

“The most difficult thing to reach between communities is consensus, and there are more or less disagreements.” Zhang Chenglong told DeepChain, “Maybe before the mainnet is launched, the alliance communities have the same goals and temporarily join forces, but after the launch, there will inevitably be gaps.”

In Zhang Chenglong's opinion, the alliance approach is not as good as imagined.

“After the alliance, alliance members sometimes poach each other and break some rules.” Lao Wang told DeepChain, “Although the official caliber is consistent, there will definitely be competition behind the scenes.”

Currently, the price of 1T on the market is mostly around 1,500 to 2,000 yuan, but some members will privately use lower prices such as 1,000 yuan/T to poach other members.

According to Lao Wang, a large mining node had fallen from grace because it had been using a low price of 500 yuan/T to attract customers for a long time, resulting in it being unable to make ends meet.

In addition to some internal competition caused by loose alliances, due to the cluster mining method, each node in each alliance will be responsible for a certain mining link alone, and it is not ruled out that the mining industry will be further subdivided. This will also lead to changes in the status of miner nodes.

But despite this, in Lao Wang's opinion, the benefits of an alliance are still far greater than fighting alone, at least for now.

Through alliances and first-mover advantage, in the Filecoin ecosystem, the effective storage value is becoming increasingly concentrated in the top miner nodes, and the trend is intensifying.

Faced with this situation, Hu Feng of Spacetime Cloud also expressed his concerns in an interview with the media.

“Currently, in the test network test ranking, the top three miners account for more than 70% of the coin production. However, among the hundreds of mining machine manufacturers on the market, many companies cannot even make the test network list, which is a very dangerous thing.”

Lao Zheng also believes that if a miner on a chain occupies the vast majority of computing power (effective storage value), then the ecosystem of this project will die.

The effective storage value is highly concentrated. Is this a normal phenomenon in the Filecoin field or a dangerous signal? At present, there is no answer. Just like the current mining node structure, whether it will change in the future, it is also impossible to make a conclusion now.

Some miners said that in the field of Bitcoin mining, Pumpkin Zhang and Bakecat dominated the market in the early days, and finally it became a competitive landscape among three major mining machine giants such as Bitmain. Now this landscape is also facing challenges from Shenma Mining Machine and Innosilicon, not to mention the Filecoin mining ecosystem.

Perhaps the war will really begin after the Filecoin mainnet is launched.

Author: Bu Er Zuo

Editor｜Menren Operation｜Xiao Shitou Feng Qingyang

Source: DeepChain