What is filecoin?Filecoin is a peer-to-peer network that stores files, with built-in economic incentives and cryptography to ensure files are stored reliably over time. In Filecoin, users pay to store their files on storage providers.
In Filecoin, users pay to store their files on storage providers. Storage providers are computers responsible for storing files and proving they have stored them correctly over time. Anyone who wants to store their files or get paid for storing other users’ files can join Filecoin.
Filecoin is built on top of the same software powering IPFS protocol, which is a peer-to-peer distributed storage network that leverages content addressing to allow permanent references to the data, and avoids relying on specific devices or cloud servers for addressing the content.
Filecoin is different from IPFS because it has an incentive layer on top to incentivize contents to be reliably stored and accessed.
Storage modelThe Filecoin storage model consists of three components:1. Providers2. Deals3. Sectors
Native currencyThe native currency of Filecoin, FIL, is a utility token used to incentivize persistent storage on the Filecoin network. Storage providers mine FIL by providing reliable storage service or committing storage capacity on the network.
Total supply FIL has a maximum circulating supply of 2,000,000,000 FIL, meaning that at most 2B Filecoin will ever be created.