In the final days before we welcome 2021, we wanted to take a moment to look back at all that the Filecoin community and network achieved in 2020. Though the year’s highlight was the mainnet launch in October, those of you who have been with us for years know the year was packed with announcements and ecosystem highlights. Let’s recap some of the most exciting events and announcements of the year…
May 2020: Expanding Storage
Filecoin Discover
Launched on May 7, Filecoin Discover was a program launched in Filecoin’s testnet era to incentivize Filecoin miners to store valuable data and earn additional FIL in the process. The Discover program was based around compensating Filecoin miners for selecting data from the Filecoin Discover Store, a library of valuable data spanning literature, science, art, and history. Miners wishing to participate in the Filecoin network can visit the site, choose which datasets they want to store, and receive that data on a drive at cost.
Filecoin Discover helped propel Filecoin’s mission to create a decentralized, efficient, and robust foundation for humanity’s information.
Testnet Phase 2 Launched
Towards the end of 2019, we launched the first phase of the Filecoin testnet. In May, we launched the second phase. Testnet 2 was the last major milestone before mainnet launch. In the update, we released: Two interoperable Filecoin implementations (go-filecoin and lotus),
Secure proofs (WinningPoSt and WindowPoSt), Drand, an overview of the network’s cryptoeconomic structures, a new documentation site, and new security audits before launch.
June: Gearing up for Mainnet Launch
Filecoin Ignite Announced
Back in June, we were already headed at full speed towards mainnet launch. We announced Filecoin Ignite, a multi-series event schedule leading up to (and going beyond) the launch to bring builders, miners, researchers, enthusiasts, and other network participants together. Ignite events included HackFS, Spark University Hackaton, Space Race 1 & 2, and the newly-announced Filecoin Frontier Accelerator.
August: Activating the Community
HackFS
August marked the completion of our inaugural HackFS hackathon. Over a month, 134 teams worked on projects across the Filecoin ecosystem. In total, more than 470 hackers from 50 countries across 19 time zones participated in this 30-day virtual event. Check out the full presentations of the top 10 finalist teams: Sailplane, Public Annotation Network (PAN) Protocol, Pnlp, BlockSig, Valist, IPFS Recovery, PlanetFlare, Web3API, Decentralized Docker Hub, and Pygate.
Space Race 1
Space Race 1 was a 3 week competition to incentivize miners to add storage to the network and meet deal quality targets. During the competition, miners competed for 4M FIL in prizes. At the end of the day, 230PiB of storage was added to the network - 2x the original target. 400 miners from 6 continents participated, and 8 upgrades with dozens of bug and performance fixes were implemented as a result of the lessons learned.
Filecoin Economy Report
In August, we released our Filecoin Economy Report, a 34-page overview about how the Filecoin protocol aligns incentives and pragmatically rewards useful and reliable storage. The action and interaction of each of the mechanisms must be considered during this design process. Other economic structures and product offerings can then emerge from these basic building blocks. The document explains specific incentive mechanisms and economic stimuli provided by the protocol itself. For each fee, reward, or penalty in the protocol, there will be an explanation of how it is intended to contribute to long-term utility of the network.
September:
Space Race 2: Slingshot
Space Race 1 was so successful, we knew we had to do it again. In September, we launched the second Space Race to continue to onboard storage to the network.
Slate Launch
Slate is a fully open-source file sharing network designed for research and collaboration built by Protocol Labs for Filecoin. Slate allows users to store data, organize it however, and share it with the world securely. Slate’s launch resulted in more than 600 new accounts and a spot as #5 product of the day on ProductHunt. To date, Slate is approaching 200GB of 23,486 unique user data stored for all users with 0 downtime.
October: All Systems Go - Mainnet Launch
Filecoin Mainnet Launch
The date we were all waiting for. On October 15, 2020 ~3pm UTC, the Filecoin network went live. The moment marked the culmination of years of innovation and hard work. A huge thank you to everyone who dedicated their time, ideas, and expertise to make Filecoin a reality.
Liftoff Week
We couldn’t let Filecoin mainnet go live without a proper celebration. From October 19 - 23 we hosted Filecoin Liftoff Week, a week completely dedicated to the Filecoin ecosystem, with speakers from across the world and across the Web3 ecosystem joined us to talk to the community about their projects and the Filecoin network. We had over 2,000 participants in 5 days engaging in over 8,2000 session views on YouTube. Filecoin Liftoff was led by 81 speakers across 84 sessions representing all aspects of the Filecoin community – app developers, miners, storage clients, policymakers, human rights activists, investors, and more!
The event saw coverage in more than 280 articles, including CoinDesk, Decrypt, Fortune, Morning Consult, The Block, and Investing.com. Check out each day’s recordings on YouTube.
November: First Milestone Met 🚀
Filecoin Surpasses 1 Exbibyte of Storage
In November, the Filecoin community celebrated its first major milestone less than four weeks after mainnet launch. By November 24th, the network had surpassed 1 exbibyte (EiB) of decentralized storage capacity. How much is an exbibyte? 1 EiB is enough to store: 290M 1080p movies, 4,500 Wikipedias, 685,000 years of continuous video calls, 19 copies of the entire Internet Archive.
December: Filecoin Ecosystem Economics
Just recently, we wanted to round out the year with all the information the community has been asking about the economics of the Filecoin network and FIL. Along with ETH Global, we hosted a packed, 1-day event Storage Markets Summit. The day, split into 5 themed ‘blocks’, saw developers, investors, and partners from across the Filecoin ecosystem give deep dives and overviews of different aspects of the Filecoin network and its economics.
Looking Ahead: Filecoin in 2021
If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that the Filecoin community is capable of extraordinary innovation. The vast majority of what the community achieved in 2020 was done on the Filecoin testnet. Now, we are looking ahead at all of 2021 and beyond on the Filecoin mainnet, and we could not be more excited.
Congratulations to the entire Filecoin community for a spectacular 2020! We can’t wait to see you again in 2021. Happy Holidays!