Missed the First Filecoin Plus Day? We’ve Got You Covered.
The Filecoin Foundation and Protocol Labs hosted the first Filecoin Plus Day on May 11. Over the course of three hours, more than 100 participants — including project architects, Filecoin Plus users, cryptoecon experts, and miners — came together to talk about the program. These groups are working together to maximize the amount of useful storage on Filecoin by adding a layer of social trust to the network.
We plan to host more Filecoin Plus Days in the coming months. Follow us on Twitter and on this blog for the latest. And catch up on what you missed at this first event below.
First Up: Get to Know the Filecoin Foundation
Megan Klimen and Clara Tsao, co-founding officers of the Filecoin Foundation, kicked off the day with an introduction to the Filecoin Foundation, an independent organization dedicated to developing Filecoin and related technologies. The Foundation supports the creation and improvement of open source software and open protocols for decentralized data storage and retrieval networks. Watch the recap.
Deep Dive on DataCap and Core Concepts
Next up, Protocol Labs’ Deep Kapur gave an overview of the core concepts of Filecoin Plus, inspired by Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom’s award-winning work, “Governing the Commons.” Ostrom’s research on the “tragedy of the commons” laid the groundwork for the idea that individuals and communities can manage their own collective resources.
Deep explained DataCap, a resource in the network which can be used for clients to negotiate with miners for storing data which yields a higher ratio of block rewards over time. He also laid out the stakeholders in this process and their responsibilities: root key holders, notaries, clients, miners, and the Filecoin Plus governance community. Watch Deep’s presentation.
Fil+ Community Showcase
Next up, we heard from a half-dozen amazing teams leveraging Filecoin Plus — as miners, app developers, and storage clients — in the Filecoin Plus Day Community Showcase.
MooseDar
First, Dr. Rob MacInnis, developer of AetherStore and MooseDar, explored opportunities for data encoding in Filecoin. MooseDar is an environmental driver safety project that uses infrared cameras, pre-trained neural networks, and light signaling to provide real-time warnings of large animals located on or near roadways to avoid collisions. The system requires storing large amounts of data. And storing this data locally — especially above the flood plains where MacInnis lives — is unreliable. MacInnis talked about how he uses data encoding to store and protect this data. Watch MacInnis’s presentation.
Progress in IPFSUnion
Next up, we heard from Steve Song from IPFSUnion, who’s working to build the best infrastructure for the Filecoin ecosystem, including the development of Filscout, a Filecoin blockchain browser. Watch Song’s presentation.
Meet Filplus.info
FileDrive has developed Filplus.info, a Filecoin Plus dashboard that records dataset allocation and distribution. In this talk, Laura from FileDrive explained how FileDrive works and walks through a demo of the site. Watch Laura’s presentation.
Notary Learnings
Textile’s Andrew Hill dove into the notary process, how it works, and how to get involved. “At Textile, we’ve been really focused on the client side of this marketplace and trying to figure out how to get more clients involved with creating data on the network,” Hill said. “And Filecoin Plus is really focused on the security of the network, ensuring that people are using the network in a really positive way.” As a notary, Hill says, he’s working to remove some of the barriers to entry to Filecoin Plus and make it easier for anyone to get involved. Watch the presentation.
Starling Lab and Filecoin Plus
Starling Lab, led by Jonathan Dotan, is working to produce a comprehensive set of tools and principles that empowers organizations to securely capture, store and verify human history. In his presentation, Jonathan talked about the important datasets that are under the purview of the Lab and why Filecoin Plus is a key piece of the puzzle to preserving critical historical records. Watch Dotan’s presentation.
Filswan and Distributing Large Volumes of Deals
Filswan’s Charles Cao presented on how to manage large numbers of deals and to send out those deals to miners. Swan is a marketplace for Filecoin miners and clients to post and bid on deals online. The platform also provides powerful deal lifestyle management, fast file retrieval, petabyte-scale data migration, content network delivery, multi-data center caching, encryption, and more. Watch Cao’s presentation.
Documenting the Fil+ User Journey
Finally, Maggie Love, co-founder and director at W3BCLOUD, walked through the Filecoin Plus user journey step by step for new participants. W3BCLOUD is building the infrastructure for both the compute and storage layers of the decentralized web and is a Filecoin miner. “What we really wanted to do was bring more light and transparency to the Filecoin Plus process,” Love said, adding that she and her team are hoping to improve the program with community feedback. Watch Love’s presentation.
Notary Governance Call
Following the community presentations, Filecoin Plus Day moved into the biweekly notary governance call, where Deep shared details on the fiduciary role of the notaries. Notaries are distributed across the world and have a diverse set of focuses, including Web3 services, scientific and historical datasets, and media content. They are fiduciaries of the Filecoin network and are expected to do the required due diligence to identify valuable clients and bring them onto the network.
Notaries have a notable impact on data stored on Filecoin, and the community is invited to collectively monitor progress in making the network more productive. To date, there are currently 14 Notaries serving the network. As part of this call, the the community aligned on hosting another round of Notary elections — applications for this are open from now through May 25th. Click here for more details on the application process.
Deep thanked the members of the community that have been involved in the program to date, whether through creating issues in the Notary Governance repo, participating in the biweekly governance meetings, or applying to be a notary. Watch the recap.
Filecoin Plus: An Economic Lever for a More Useful Network
Wrapping up the day, Protocol Labs’ ZX highlighted the growth of Filecoin Plus since network launch in October 2020, and talked about the unique value proposition of Filecoin Plus and the network as a whole. “The storage prices are quite competitive today, and many new companies are joining the ecosystem to make it even better,” he said. “It’s not just about storage. We start from storage, but it doesn’t end there. There are lots of value-added services that can be provided on top of storage.” Watch ZX’s presentation.
Thanks and Next Steps
Thanks again to everyone who participated in the first-ever Filecoin Plus Day. This is the first of what we hope will be more regular meetings of this community.
To learn more about how you can get involved today in the Filecoin Plus Ecosystem, check out these resources:
You can also participate in Filecoin Plus’s biweekly notary governance calls. Use the Filecoin Community Events calendar to join.
