What is the distributed storage that solves the problem of insufficient memory in blockchain?

On October 15 last year, the Filecoin mainnet was launched at blockchain height 148888. OKEx, Huobi, and Binance successively announced support for their token Fil, which was launched on the evening of the same day. After going online, the Filecoin ecology gradually became richer, and the Filecoin network quickly began to deploy in fields such as finance, media, and games.

Up to now, the Filecoin official website has been running smoothly for 10 months, and it will soon celebrate the first anniversary of the mainnet launch. Why did the mainnet launch attract so much attention at that time? What does it mean for the development of blockchain?

01
What are IPFS and Filecoin, and what are their connections with the blockchain?

IPFS, the full name of InterPlanetary File System, is a point-to-point distributed file system that uses the following four major technical principles.

1. Distributed Hash Table (DHT, full name: Distributed Hash Table): a distributed storage solution that maintains a huge file index through nodes throughout the network Hash table (file hash value and the IP address of the computer where the file is stored). Since the table has a lot of content, it is divided into small blocks, and each node maintains a small block.

When looking for a file, first find the node address where the file content is stored, and then search for information from the node. In other words, even if a server is not needed, the corresponding file storage can be found from DHT s position.

2.BT protocol (full name BitTorrent): As a file transfer protocol, BT protocol is different from the commonly used Http protocol. BT file transfer is through independent users. point-to-point transmission.

For example, if a file is shared by A, in commonly used HTTP downloads, B, C, D, E, F, and G are all downloaded from A. As a result, A is overwhelmed, while BT transmission technology can This allows B to download from A, and after downloading, C can download from A and B. Everyone's download speed is getting faster and faster. This is the principle of "BT download" that is commonly used by everyone.

3. Version control system (Git): Git is the most advanced distributed version control system in the world, which can be used to track, branch, merge and manage code versions.

For example, you need to write a document that needs to be sent to various departments in different forms and slightly changed content. If multiple departments are involved, you may need to write multiple versions and save them all. This is where Git comes in handy. It can automatically record every file change, and also allows colleagues to collaborate on editing, making tracking and operation easier.

4. Self-Certifying File System (SFS, full name Self-Certifying File System): IPFS uses SFS self-certification in file naming, so that anyone publishing file objects on IPFS can It can have its own verification function, and other users can also confirm whether the file is published by the user, ensuring the accuracy of the source of the information.

It can be seen from the four technical principles used that IPFS is mainly a system that optimizes storage, transmission, file search, etc. IPFS was released in 2015 and has been in use for 6 years, but it itself has nothing to do with the blockchain, nor is it the same as FileCoin, which was launched last year.

Filecoin is just an incentive layer of IPFS. It solves the problems of IPFS by introducing the design of blockchain and economic model. The two are in a mutually reinforcing relationship.

Since the blockchain itself is not suitable for storing large amounts of data, it can only record some simple transaction data. If IPFS and Filecoin can provide a long-term, low-cost, secure, and privacy-protective storage method for the blockchain, it will become an important infrastructure for the blockchain.

02
The mainnet of Ace Pigeon is online, what does it mean?

Filecoin originally planned to launch the main network in 2018, but it was delayed many times. After many twists and turns, it was jokingly called " "Pigeon Project", but every time it is ready to go online, it can become the focus of the industry. What exactly does the mainnet launch mean and what impact might it have?

First of all, many trading platforms such as Binance, OKEx, Huobi, and Coinbase have clearly stated that they will support the project, which will help further promote the rapid growth of IPFS and promote the development of the blockchain industry. Prosperity.

Secondly, IPFS begins to integrate with the traditional Internet world. It will attract more ordinary users to participate in the blockchain. Let more people experience the advantages of decentralized storage in terms of privacy protection, storage cost, security and stability, etc., which is conducive to the value transfer of data.

Finally, fundamentally changes the way users access files. All access will be dispersed to different nodes. Hackers actually have no idea which server this file is stored on, and there is no way to attack it. If you want to attack a certain server, you basically have to capture a certain network, avoiding HTTP Disadvantages of being vulnerable to prying eyes and unstable.

It is understood that all confidential documents taken from the moon during the U.S. Apollo moon landing program were uploaded and saved using IPFS; Firefox, the world’s second largest browser, announced support for the IPFS distributed protocol; imToken’s encrypted asset wallet It has been clearly stated that it will connect to IPFS; the Library of Congress and WikiLeaks also use the IPFS network to store data, etc.

03
Summary

It is worth noting that IPFS also has a layout in the NFT field, relying on its distributed storage characteristics , has laid out the security of NFT assets.

With the surge in storage demand in the data era, Filecoin is trying to use blockchain solutions to revolutionize the storage field. As a technology developed around the pain points in blockchain, IPFS may bring The implementation of blockchain applications adds more possibilities.

What do you think of the development of Filecoin in the past year since its launch? Welcome to share your views in the message area.

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