IPFS and EOS are both the next generation of Internet infrastructure, and both belong to Blockchain 3.0. Blockchain 3.0 solves the commercial problems of blockchain. Because the full name of EOS is Commercial Distributed Application System, the same is true for IPFS. If blockchain wants to achieve commercial use, it needs to solve two very important problems, one is decentralized storage, and the other is decentralized computing. Storage and computing are two basic problems that blockchain commercialization needs to solve.

EOS solves the computing problem of decentralized commercial applications, and IPFS solves the storage problem of decentralized commercial applications. Today, the topic I want to share with you is the difference between the mining principle of IPFS and the BTC/ETH that is known to the public. The Filecoin system has created two mining markets. The first is the storage market, which provides hard disk storage, and the second is the data retrieval market, which provides network data. Each party can get a certain amount of Filecoin as a reward based on the amount provided. This is different from the method of obtaining rewards based on computing speed, such as BTC.

The relationship between IPFS system and FIlecoin system

1: IPFS is just a protocol, not the mining software itself;

2: The Filecoin system is the mining software itself, and the token name is FIL.

3: Filecoin uses the IPFS protocol to run the system;

4: Both Filecoin and IPFS protocols are developed and maintained by Protocol Labs.

How are FIL tokens distributed?

There are a total of 2 billion FIL tokens, and the distribution plan consists of four parts:

1: 70% as mining rewards: like Bitcoin, it will be distributed gradually according to the progress of mining;

2: 15% reserved for Protocol Labs: as research and development expenses, gradually lifted over 6 years;

3: 10% is allocated to ICO investors: the ban will be gradually lifted according to the mining progress;

4: 5% is reserved for the Filecoin Foundation: as a long-term community building, network management and other expenses, and will be gradually lifted over 6 years.

How to mine?

The Filecoin system creates two mining markets:

1: Filecoin Storage Market

Hard disk - yes, it is the size of the hard disk. What you need to contribute to the data storage market is the hard disk storage space. The more hard disk space you have, the higher your mining ability will be. The proof of work used in the storage market is PoS (Power of Storage), which allocates FIL to everyone in proportion to the size of the data you store. So everyone knows what to do: students who want to dig the first pot of gold, prepare your disks.

2: Filecoin’s Retrieval Market

Bandwidth - Provides network bandwidth. If you have bandwidth resources, you can consider mining in this market and allocate FIL according to your bandwidth.

Of course, you can also participate in both markets at the same time. It all depends on you. After the Filecoin system is released, students who want to mine should act quickly and strive to mine the first pot of gold from FIL. Just like BTC, the earlier you intervene, the higher the returns.

What can be done currently for mining?

1: Mining machine: Mining machines do not need high configuration, ordinary machines are fine, and a certain access bandwidth is guaranteed. At present, it is not recommended that you do anything on the mining machine. Filecoin is different from BTC and is not based on computing power. At present, there are no special requirements for the machine. It only needs to run the mining software smoothly. In the future, dedicated mining machines will definitely be developed to reduce costs, and the cost will definitely be lower than assembling them yourself.

2: Hard disk: The focus is on hard disk space. Now we focus on studying how to reduce the cost per TB of hard disks. Different hard disk types, different service lives, initial investments, and future hard disk cost reductions can all be modeled. Draw an expected profit curve and maximize the profit.

3: Network speed: IPFS is a p2p type of network. If the network speed is fast enough, you can participate in mining in the data retrieval market and pay attention to how to increase the network speed.

4: Location: According to the latest Filecoin paper and forum content, Filecoin's revenue may be related to the region where the mining machine is located, especially in areas with high network traffic, that is, large cities. For example, if you participate in the retrieval market, if your mining machine is located in some sparsely populated places, no matter how fast it is, the output will not be high. Instead, it should be built in places with high population density. For example, first-tier cities and provincial capitals. So it is likely that you need to build mining farms in different cities.

The main technical difficulties of Filecoin:

① Proof-of-Spacetime: Prove that miners have used specific storage space to store specific data (for mining) over a period of time;

② Proof-of-Replication: Proof that specific data has been copied to the user's storage space;

③PFT (Power Fault Tolerance): An upgraded version of Byzantine Fault Tolerance. It is a classic problem that all communication protocols cannot avoid, the Byzantine Generals Problem. However, I believe that the IPFS technical team, which currently has more than 100 top technical personnel in the world, will solve the problem.

How does the Filecoin protocol work?

●How do users use the Filecoin system to query and store data?

●How do storage miners mine and how do they obtain FIL tokens?

●How do search miners mine and obtain FIL tokens?

Filecoin protocol, the interaction between users and miners. The IPFS protocol and the FIlecoin protocol together form the DSN (Decentralized Storage Network), so how do they collaborate: the retrieval and storage of data between users and miners is carried out in the form of orders.

The block data of the Filecoin protocol contains the following data:

① Order data: data orders between users and miners

② Transaction: Transfer transaction

③ Configuration table: data block information

User scenarios:

① The user submits a data storage order (PUT) to the Filecoin system

② The user submits a data retrieval order (GET) to the Filecoin system

③ If the above order is reached, the user pays FIL to obtain the corresponding service

Storage miner scenario:

① Register your own hard disk space on the blockchain. After registration, the hard disk space will be recorded in the configuration table of the blockchain.

② Accept the order, the storage order submitted by the user (PUT)

③ After the order transaction is reached, both parties sign the transaction, the miner completes the data storage, and the transaction is recorded in the recent block after it is completed.

④ The user obtains the corresponding payment

Retrieve miner scenario:

① Accept the order, the user submits the data query order (GET)

② After the transaction is concluded, both parties sign the transaction, the miner sends the data to the user, and the transaction is submitted to the blockchain

What is the difference between IPFS mining and BTC/ETH mining?

① The mining principles are different:

PoW, the full name of Proof of Work, is proof of work.

Bitcoin/Ethereum, as well as most public chains or virtual currencies, are based on the PoW algorithm to achieve their consensus mechanism. That is, the distribution of currency is determined based on the effective work contributed by mining. The so-called mining under this principle is the process of computers constantly looking for Nonce values ​​and calculating Hash values ​​through exhaustive methods. Whoever finds it first will succeed in mining.

PoW, Proof of Work, is a method derived from economics.

It is a strategy proposed by two economists in 1993. It is an effective blocking economic strategy to prevent the abuse of services or resources. PoW has the advantages of being reliable and widely used. It is a public chain consensus algorithm that has been fully tested in practice.

But its disadvantages are also obvious:

(1) It consumes too much extra computing power, which means a lot of energy, which is not environmentally friendly.

(2) Large amounts of capital are invested in mining machines, resulting in the centralization of computing power and the potential security risk of 51% attacks.

Simply put, mining based on the PoW mechanism consumes a lot of computing power and electricity.

PoSt stands for Proof-of-Spacetime, which means (storage) space-time proof.

Based on the equity consensus PoS (Proof-of-Stake), Filecoin improved the consensus mechanism to PoSt to replace the proof of work PoW. In the Filecoin system, miners complete storage, and users confirm that miners have completed storage. The "confirmation that miners have completed storage" here is Filecoin's consensus mechanism (PoSt). This "confirmation that miners have completed storage" will always exist in the Filecoin network, and users can view it at any time.

PoSt is generated by Filecoin when verifying that miners store user data. Filecoin converts the current storage data of miners in the network relative to the storage ratio of the entire network into voting power of the miner, where the probability of the network selecting a miner to create a new block is proportional to the storage they are using and the cost of the rest of the network.

Under the PoSt mechanism, miners would rather invest in storage rather than computing power to parallelize mining calculations. Miners provide storage and reuse computing to prove that data is stored to participate in consensus. Using storage proof (PoSt) to generate consensus does not waste computing resources and energy like Bitcoin, and can motivate miners to invest more storage space (hard disk) resources rather than computing and energy resources to contribute to the network, which is a very environmentally friendly and efficient way.

Simply put, mining based on the PoSt mechanism is mining that requires a large amount of storage space (hard disk) and bandwidth resources.

② The mining machines are essentially different:

The essence of BTC/ETH mining machines is data computing equipment.

Mining has evolved from the initial PC mining, graphics card mining, and personal mining at home to the current clustered, professional, large-scale mining. Whether it is the initial CPU mining, GPU mining, or the later FPGA mining, ASIC mining, and large-scale cluster mining, the essence is to focus on improving the data computing capabilities of mining equipment.

The essence of IPFS mining machine is data storage device.

The difference in the nature of mining machines makes the configuration characteristics of storage mining machines very different from those of BTC/ETH mining machines. Storage mining machines mainly used for data storage do not require too high computing power, that is, the CPU performance does not require too high, and the memory capacity is suitable, but a large storage space is required, that is, the hard disk density per unit space must be large, and as many hard disks as possible should be equipped. At the same time, the I/O performance of data storage must be high, and there must be as high a bandwidth channel as possible. Due to the special requirements of data storage, the entire mining machine must be stable, safe, and not easily damaged.

③ Different mine selections

BTC/ETH mining farms: Because they consume a lot of electricity resources, places that can provide cheap electricity are the first choice. Our domestic mining farms of this type are all located in relatively remote places such as Inner Mongolia and southwestern provinces, because there are abundant thermal power, wind power or hydropower resources. The requirements inside the mining farm are relatively simple. As long as the ventilation and heat dissipation effect is good, the racks for placing mining machines do not need too professional equipment, and there are no special requirements for the floor and ceiling of the mining farm. The mining farm does not require high dispersion, so this type of mining farm is also relatively concentrated.

IPFS mining farm: The hard disk space of the mining machine must be large, the network bandwidth must be large, and the site is preferably in a place with high usage frequency and large population flow. Because the IPFS mining machine does not consume much energy, it is not demanding on the supply of electricity. Because there is a large amount of data I/O, the network bandwidth requirement is as high as possible. Due to the particularity of data storage, the mining farm must be built in accordance with the requirements of the data center or quasi-data center, and it is required to be as constant temperature, constant humidity and anti-static as possible. The equipment for placing the mining machine must also be a professional server cabinet. For large mining farms, IDC data rooms in large cities are the first choice. For small mining farms, it is a good choice to place them inside residential areas. Due to the particularity of the IPFS system, the more dispersed the mining farm is, the better. Large mining farms are useful, small mining farms are also useful, and even personal mining equipment at home is equally useful.